Fragile Territories

Commissioned by Hamburger Symphoniker, Fragile Territories constructs entire orchestral universe from single acoustic event: the oboe's tuning A at the work's beginning. This pitch—traditionally preparation before real music—becomes generative source material, its spectral components analyzed and distributed across full orchestra.

The piece unfolds as series of epiphanic events, sudden illuminations revealing hidden territories within familiar tuning note. Each orchestral gesture emerges from spectral partials extracted from oboe's tone—difference tones, combination frequencies, resonant peaks, noise components. Formal structure operates through accumulation and dissolution, punctuated by moments where orchestra momentarily coalesces before dissolving back into spectral dispersion.