Leonard Slatkin conducts "Solaria" by Ferran Cruixent

Leonard Slatkin conducts Solaria's rehearsal for the Spanish premiere on November 4, 2021.
Orquestra Simfònica de les Illes Balears.
Teatre Principal de Palma.
Palma de Mallorca (Spain).
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SOLARIA for orchestra
Ferran Cruixent (b.1976)
Work commissioned 2015 by the Fundazione Haydn Stiftung (Bolzano e Trento, Italy)
Published by Sikorski Music Publishers (Concord Music Publishing)
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World premiere:
Feb. 3, 2015 (Bolzano) and Feb. 4, 2015 (Trento, Italy)
Haydn Orchestra di Bolzano e Trento
Christoph Poppen (cond.)
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Work information:
Duration: approx. 12 min.
Instrumentation: 2.2.2.2. - 4.2.3.0 - Timp (+ perc., 1 player) - Strings (5string contrabasses needed)
Program notes:
Solaria" for orchestra is a one-movement work, inspired by the composer's fascination with the dangers of human dependence in technological business. The name "Solaria" is inspired by Isaac Asimov's fantasy planet: "(...) Solaria was the last of fifty Spacer worlds colonized by humans in the first wave of interstellar settlement. This world became totally dependent on robot labor: roughly 10,000 robots existed for every human (...)"
The whole orchestra describes the poetry of an imaginary desert and mechanical civilization landscapes, asking the players to play in special techniques, such as "Cyber Singing" (introduced 2010 in composer's symphonic work "Cyborg").
"Cyber Singing" introduces a new possibility of interaction, attaining genuine communication itself.
The audio file prepared by the composer himself is played by the musician from his own mobile phone, a device commonly used for other purposes. So, Cruixent defines a new possibility of interaction between the composer and the musician, attaining genuine communication itself.
A popular melody at the end of this work refers to the old song "Daisy Bell" (Harry Dacre, 1892), programmed (1961) on an IBM 704 computer in the earliest known demonstration of computer
speech synthesis, and inspired Arthur C. Clark to write his novel "2001, a Space Odyssey". Also (1974) auditory researchers used this melody for the first demonstration of "pure dichotic" (two-ear only) perception. This song works as a metaphor for the beginning of artificial intelligence.
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