Standing on the shoulders of giants, who dares to want to enroll in the premier class of sacred composition: What else could be added to the Requiem that hasn't already been said? The greatest have attempted it, and it is against them that anyone who sets out to tackle this sacrosanct monument will be judged – and arguably (for the wrong reasons) found wanting. Only a radical break with form helps: tradition needs to be properly dusted off by desecration, resting on the laurels of the traditional given a good shake-up – “dissolved in ashes”, as the liturgy says. Pitch-black orchestrations between high romanticism and atonality, surrounded by booming no-wave guitars in step with trance-like percussion patterns - bombast and simultaneous negation of the same; with a polyphonic chorus of the damned, to which a soprano voice enthrones like the judge of the end of time himself, desperately sing of death as the fait accompli of being human. "In the midst of life we are surrounded by death." And everything is embraced and embedded in the powerful roar of the organ. This is the Liturgy of Doom, an unusual marriage of styles at a funeral mass! Everything flows together in order to scream our individual end and our collective end from the soul - if it should exist. Days of anger in a wrecked hole in London, converted into the productive creative power of the elemental rebellion against the absurdity of existence, presented in the interlacing of euphony and dissonance. Let's see if the eternal light - or even a glimmer of hope - can find some crack in this pitch-black reverberation room of despair... (Thomas Jenny)
...
The hour-long work was penned by the musician Lee Schornoz, who lives in Bern and was born in Freiburg. Schornoz laid the foundation stone for Requiem Londinium in 2016 in London, Clapham Junction. He composed, arranged and produced the album in an electronic version, which will be released at the premiere of the live version. Manfred Jungo from Freiburg further developed and arranged Schornoz' work for the live version. The choral scores have been revised by Stéphane Cosandey.
The funeral mass will be performed in front of the audience by conductor Frédéric Zosso and his symphony orchestra Ouroboros (Konzertmeisterin: Kristina Blaser) as well as Stéphane Cosandey's 30-strong vocal ensemble TiramiSu. Instead of a boy singer, the three young girls Alessia Baeriswyl, Augustine Julmy and Elea Sauteur will perform.The opera voice is carried by Croatian-born Nikolina Pinko. Jean-Charles Gonzalez is the cantor. The music is framed by an e-band with the well-known Freiburg guitarists Julien Menth, Sandro Schmutz, Thomas Jenny, Christophe Egger, Joel Martinho and the drummer Adrian Mahler.
Live at the Franciscan Church and Monastery, Fribourg, Switzerland, Saturday, October 14th, 2023
1 Introitus
2 The Balance Of Twilight
3 Gloria & Graduale
4 Intro Dies Irae & Dies Irae
5 Dies Irae Outro
6 Liber Scriptus & Recordare
7 Confutatis
8 Lacrimosa & Domine Iesu Christe
9 Hostias Et Preces Tibi & Sanctus
10 Agnus Dei
11 Libera Me
12 Lux Aeterna
Participants
Lee Schornoz
Lee (Louis Pierre) Schornoz was born in 1969 in Fribourg, Switzerland. He started making music at the age of 15. His main motivation is composing songs and pieces of music. Together with his brother André he owns his own recording studio (Caliber Club 2.0) where he spends every free minute working on new songs.
As a musician from Freiburg, Manfred Jungo is active in many different areas. As a classically trained saxophonist at the University of the Arts in Bern, he is currently mainly on the road with his instrument in experimental music and jazz. In recent years he has been able to gain a lot of experience as a conductor, choirmaster, composer and initiator of countless musical projects. His stylistic openness makes him a very agile and dynamic musician.
Stéphane Cosandey has been directing the TiramiSu choir since 1995. He took lessons in classical piano and jazz piano at the Friborg Conservatory and holds a teaching diploma for music and singing at orientation schools and secondary schools. He has also been working as a music teacher at the orientation school of Châtel-St-Denis since 2009. Cosandey has many years of experience as a singer in numerous styles from jazz and musicals to (including Gregorian) classical music, as well as as a choir director and arranger.
Frédéric Zosso
Frédéric Zosso is a Friborg musician. As a saxophonist, he had the opportunity to perform as a soloist in Switzerland and abroad, notably in China, where he was principal saxophone of the Dunshan Symphonic Wind Orchestra and professor at the China Conservatory in Beijing. Today, he devotes himself almost exclusively to teaching his instrument at the conservatory of Friborg because since 2012, he started conducting and is currently at the head of four ensembles: La Cordiale de Neyruz, the Union Instrumentale de Fribourg, the Orchester d'Harmonie Fribourgeois and the Ensemble Ouroboros.
Nikolina Pinko
Nikolina Pinko is a soprano with many interests. After studying singing at the Zagreb Academy of Music, a diploma in philosophy and religious studies at the Faculty of Arts in Zagreb and numerous trainings/master courses abroad, she is involved in opera, concerts and teaching. She has won prizes in national and international singing competitions. Pinko has many operatic roles in Croatian national theaters and abroad. As a soloist she performs with the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, the Zagreb Philharmonic, the Croatian Radio and Television Orchestra, but also with the world-famous Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra, the Thuringian Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra (on their major tour of China) and many others. It is a special honor for her to perform at major spectacles with works such as Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" as part of the 9th Symphony, Mendelssohn's oratorio "Elias", Bruckner's "Te Deum", Mozart's "Coronation Mass" and "Requiem". She is successful in performing modern and experimental music and records premieres of numerous composers.
Ouroboros
The name of the Ouroboros ensemble refers to a symbol found in many cultures: the snake biting its own tail. The Serpent represents the cycle of time and eternity, rebirth and renewal, evolution and return - all in the spirit of an orchestra that seeks to nurture the talents of our youth while evolving with a cast that renews itself with each project . The Ouroboros also stands for a universal world between tradition and innovation: for us it is the world of "learned" music that we want to make accessible to everyone. Ouroboros was founded in 2018 by musicology students at the University of Freiburg. The founding committee aims to offer an original and scholarly informed music program dedicated to discovery and rediscovery.
The Vocal Ensemble TiramiSu consists of around 30 singers and has been interpreting rhythmically interesting and harmonically sophisticated arrangements for more than 30 years. We feel particularly at home in the fields of jazz, funk, blues and pop. Since 1995, the musical direction of the ensemble has been shaped by the versatility of its conductor Stéphane Cosandey.
from left to right: Christophe Egger (Los Bulls), Thomas Jenny (Overdrive Amp Explosion/The Burden Remains), Sandro Schmutz (Black Mount Rise), Julien Menth (Emerald, Graywolf, Dark Colony), Joel Marthinho (Los Bulls)
Jean-Charles Gonzalez
Singing in general and liturgical singing in particular holds an important place in my life, as does the liturgy and everything related to the spiritual life. Polyglot, I like the Greco-Latin culture, but also more distant horizons. Double degree in theology, in my daily life between shadows and lights I try to "tradidi quod et accepi", on the path "Ad Lucem".
Sally Jo Rüedi
Sally Jo Rüedi was born in England and has been working for several years as an organist at the Franciscan Church in Solothurn, as well as in the Reformed parishes of Nidau, Oberwil bei Büren and Büren a. A. She is the initiator of various cross-style projects, for example with the trio "Take Three", where she plays together with jazz trumpeter Daniel Woodtli and percussionist Tobias Rüedi. Sally Jo Rüedi is also active as a composer. In the spring of this year, she released a CD of her own organ works entitled "Lord of the Winds", which includes music for wind-dynamic organs.
Perspective Shifts, Black Mount Rise, Zeno Tornado & The Ill Eagles a.o.
Album Requiem Londinium
Lee Schornoz will release his third solo album Requiem Londinium (Electronic Version) on Friday October 13th, 2023. The musician, who was born in Freiburg and lives in Bern, wrote the music during his six-month stay in London in 2016. The sketches were created using experimental loops and sound collages. Schornoz' added five tracks of detuned or altered guitar sounds to nearly all of the tracks to create a dark, diffuse mood to contrast with the instrument and orchestral samples.
After completing studies of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, he decided in 2020 to design choral and opera-voice arrangements for his version. He produced this in his own studio with Debbie Miller, Guido Philipona, Ida Elena De Razza and soprano Nikolina Pinko. On other pieces, the guitarist added a chamber music ensemble (with: Kristina Blaser - violin; Pascal Schafer - tuba; André Schornoz - double bass; Simon Feyer - bassoon; Yves Schouwey - Glockenspiel) and cantor Jean-Charles Gonzalez. Gonzalez recites versions in Latin of the funeral mass and excerpts from the Apocalypse of St. John.
Recordings, composition, arrangements, guitars, loops, samples, voices, percussion, mix: Lee Schornoz, nicstage Mobile Device London and Bern; Caliber Club 2.0, Tentlingen
