Sonic Boom – Aya Metwalli

«Sonic Boom» is the Gare du Nord's new Artist-in-Residence programme. Eight emerging artists from the fields of contemporary and experimental music, sound performance and music theatre are given space and support for their artistic development.
Over a period of two years, they will each create and present two Cartes Blanches in which they can express their individual artistic approaches. The programme is accompanied by a discourse and mentoring format.

«The Whisperer, The Cunning» is a minimalist musical theatre piece for voice, electronics, prepared piano and percussion. It unfolds in a dim, sonorous soundscape reminiscent of a fever dream.

A singer, a microphone, a chair and a red light that pulsates like a heart.
The voice, fragile and defiant at the same time, becomes the central figure, oscillating between human and non-human, saint and serpent. The text combines newly interpreted fragments from Koranic descriptions of ‘al-waswās al-khannās’ («the whisperer who withdraws») with echoes of language and ideas surrounding historical witch hunts.

The electronic layer hums, trembles, rumbles, engulfs the voice or follows it like a haunted conscience. Even silence becomes an instrument – a threshold, a space of fear. In this intimate form, the devil no longer appears as a mythical figure, but as an inner vibration.

«The Whisperer, The Cunning» is a séance of suggestion, a meditation on fear, desire and the voices that continue to echo under the skin.

With

Aya Metwalli (composition/voice/electronics); Julian Sartorius (percussion); Magda Mayas (prepared piano)

Prices

CHF 35.-/25.-/15.- (free choice at the box office or in advance)
Free admission applies to persons with residence permit N, F or S. / CHF 5.- students of the Hochschule für Musik FHNW and the Musicology Seminar of the University of Basel / CHF 10.- members Colourkey, KulturLegi and children under 12 years.