Musica Sacra, 20 september 2026, 15:30 Lumière Maastricht
This programme brings together two singular voices of contemporary music: Kaija Saariaho and Jean‑Baptiste Barrière. Both composers explore the porous boundaries between body and sound, between breath and technology, between intimacy and vastness.
Ekstasis invites listeners into those liminal zones where perception loosens, dissolves, and reshapes itself — heightened here by the presence of „live electronics and live video“, which expand the performance into a multidimensional experience.
Saariaho’s „NoaNoa“ opens the evening with a shimmering, corporeal sound world: the flute as a breathing, speaking, eruptive presence, extended through delicate electronic reflections. In „Lonh“, the voice becomes the vessel of a distant, unattainable longing — a song of separation in which soprano and electronics weave a floating, almost disembodied texture.
Barrière’s „Crossing the Blind Forest“ leads further into an imaginary landscape where sonic and visual spaces grow, thicken, and recede. The programme culminates in the title work, „Ekstasis“, which transforms the very act of crossing a threshold into a musical and visual event: ecstasy as expansion, as the dissolution of boundaries between human and machine, between inner and outer worlds.
Performed by three artists whose sensitivity and presence bring these soundscapes vividly to life:
Raphaële Kennedy (soprano), Anne Davids (flutes), and Jean‑Baptiste Barrière (live electronics & live video), in collaboration with Ensemble88