Festival 2025

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For Reasons Unknown

Barratt-Due, Bailie and Tlön with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra

Saturday 13 September, at 18:00–19:30

Sentralen

200–395 kr

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What do we experience when we listen? Not seldom, just a fleeting sensation, born beyond the reach of words.

For Reasons Unknown, the title of Peder Barratt-Due’s new work, is borrowed from Lucky's monologue in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot – a torrent of seemingly nonsensical thoughts circling around the insoluble and absurd nature of existence. Barratt-Due’s music inhabits a similar borderland between restlessness and beauty, fragmentation and coherence.

In Residue, Joanna Bailie processes musical recordings through layers of echo and distortion. The sound oscillates between recognisable contours and dissolving harmonies, gradually merging with the live sonority of the strings. The echo of what once was hovers in the room like a ghost.

The concert concludes with the duo Tlön (violinist Sara Övinge and cellist Gregor Riddell) in close collaboration with musicians from the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. Inspired by the magical realism of Aldous Huxley and Jorge Luis Borges, they transform familiar musical references into strangely beautiful soundscapes.
Familiar turns strange, and one listens – searching, vulnerably present.

Programme

Peder Barratt-Due

For Reasons Unknown (world premiere)

Joanna Bailie

Residue for strings and tape (2024) (Norwegian premiere)

Tlön

Huxley for amplified strings with effects

Lucky’s monologue in Waiting for Godot contains 733 words without a single full stop, a stream of thoughts in which the phrase “for reasons unknown” suddenly appears.
Peder Barratt-Due, about his work: «The text I am working from wavers between meaning and non-meaning. It definitely sits in a grey area where you cannot quite put your finger on what is being said – yet it feels as if it is always on the tip of your tongue.»
Magical realism is a literary style in which miraculous events are described as if they were part of everyday life.
The Norwegian Chamber Orchestra is one of Europe’s most curious ensembles, known for experimenting with formats such as night-time and strolling concerts, and conductor-less productions.