Postgraduate composer Niki Zohdi's Lux Obscurata, for solo guitar, was premiered by Mauricio Galeano on Saturday 24 September at Galerie Weise in Chemnitz. This was part of the [Solowerke III] concert given by musicians part of the Leipzig-based contemporary music initiative Contemporary Insights.
Niki describes his research:
My research interrogates interstices between audible and inaudible (or identifiable and unidentifiable) uses of pre-existent material, specifically early and high Renaissance music, which I use as starting models for my compositions. Lux Obscurata uses the vocal line in Francis Pilkington’s Thanks, Gentle Moon as a Cantus Firmus and material around the Cantus Firmus constantly fluctuates in textural density creating monophonic polyphony between two polyphonic threads resulting in fluctuating levels of audibility of Pilkington’s material in the Cantus Firmus.
