In his work Strands of Polyphony #2, Guzmán Calzada Llorente brings together two seemingly different worlds of sound and musical tradition: a recorder quartet and fixed media sounding created together with Lucie Nezri through a quartet of loudspeakers.

In a church in the Spanish village of Pastrana, Guzmán Calzada Llorente recently saw an image that haunted him: the bellows of the church organ were covered with strips of sixteenth-century music notation, collages of ancient manuscripts. This fascinating sight is the starting point for his new piece.

Guzmán's fascination with how modern architects build on cultural heritage and ruins led him to apply this in the context of music, using the strips of 16th century musical notation as a source for a musical 'renovation'. Recorder ensemble Delle Donne Consort follows a predetermined route through the church, while the electronic orchestration of the score is played by the quartet of loudspeakers. The two sound worlds eventually become intertwined; a peculiar symbiosis arises in which the audience wonders what is the old and what is the new.

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