Concert 1: Signals

The fourth edition of Forward begins in Lucerne’s oldest church, in the midst of a sound installation of aluminum wind chimes. Rather than a festive opening fanfare, the forceful brass sonorities of Sofia Gubaidulina’s Quattro from 1974 initiate a captivating sonic excursion that unfolds between silence and eruption. This in turn gives way to a delicately glittering violin solo by Katherine Balch. Ted Moore’spiece experiments with the feedbackeffects between a single cymbal and amicrophone. And the Ukrainian composer Anna Korsun uses megaphone signalsto generate an apocalyptic soundscape made of chants, noises, and text fragments; it will be performed by members of “Prostir,” the choir of the Ukrainian Cultural Center, among others.