Tartu New Composers Festival 2011

This June I went to Tartu, a university town in the middle of Estonia, to participate in Tartu New Composers Festival in Jaani Kiri where Balancing on Babeltower for baritone saxophone and prepared piano, was premiered by Kaadri-Ann Sumera on piano and Ursula Chillaud on saxophone. 

Below you can read the annotation to the piece.

This Easter I went to an all night Vigil at my local Orthodox church in Nõmme. It was a special experience for me, very different from what I am used to in Iceland’s Lutheran church. People had dressed up in the appropriate clothes, women with shawl over the heads, the scent of incense and prayer candles filled the room. The choir sang music I had only heard in Rachmaninov’s piece written from the same material. I found the whole experience to be very strong and have a deep effect on me.

Lately I’ve found myself thinking about the story about the Babel Tower and what we can learn from it. I think life might be full of Babel Towers; those are there either to distract us or to guide us, all depending on how we grasp things.

It is in our nature to develop, both us as individuals, and in a larger context, mankind. In the process we can, and repeatedly do, get self-centered and then lose sight of the whole context, become too aware of our abilities and ourselves. The balance between our spiritual self, and intellectual self gets lost. These are the Babel Towers I am talking about.

At a certain point in the sermon the congregation all gathered outside the church and walked around it while the church bells were ringing. I noticed that the song the bells were playing had a tritone, something I had never before encountered in church music. Walking home after the sermon we could hear the bells down the street. I decided to use the motive in the final part of the piece. It seemed somehow appropriate.


Commissioned by Tartu New Music Ensemble for the 10. Festival of Estonian Composers in Tartu, June 2011.