Emre Sihan Kaleli: Adjacent rooms, for Borges

(Submitted by ISCM – AUSTRIAN SECTION)

Emre Sihan Kaleli (b. 1987) is a Turkish composer currently based in Vienna. He studied and acquired professional experience in four countries: Turkey, Uzbekistan, the Netherlands, and Austria. Close artistic collaborations with certain soloists and collectives, namely Matthias Arter (Switzerland), Aleksandra Bajde (Slovenia), the Omnibus Ensemble (Uzbekistan), the pre-art soloists (Switzerland), the Nieuw Ensemble (the Netherlands), and the Ensemble Modelo62 (the Netherlands), played a significant role in his artistic development. Most of his compositions strongly differ from one another, displaying a plurality of aesthetic directions and accompanying technical tools. Nonetheless, it can be observed that his music strongly tends to be expressive – it is impulsive with frequent and abrupt changes, and rich in the sense of diversity of musical scenes and situations that it presents.

About his 2018 composition Adjacent rooms, for Borges, Kaleli writes:

“In this piece, I aimed to create a continuous stream of different musical scenes. It is not only that the consecutive sections significantly differ from each other, but also a number of contrasting layers are often superimposed, i.e. presented simultaneously. The music is dynamic with often and abrupt changes and goes to unexpected directions. The piece is inspired by the fictions of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.”