CONCERTS Sopraterra
Maria W Horn & Mats Erlandsson
Collaborating for many years in the fields of music, performance and art, Zurich-based duo Sopraterra, formed by Polish composer Magda Drozd and Italian artist Nicola Genovese, presented their debut album Seven Dances to Embrace the Hollow, released in March 2025 jointly on Präsens Editionen and La Becque Editions.
Partially recorded at La Becque in 2024, Seven Dances to Embrace the Hollow features seven compositions that transform the traditional timbres of the saxophone and violin into hauntingly eerie electronic soundscapes. The name “Sopraterra” itself, translating to “above the earth” in Italian, evokes images of ancient ruins where only the upper parts remain visible, mirroring the duo’s exploration of sound landscapes that bridge the past and the future – a blend of antique melodies and obscure drones.
The ongoing collaboration between Stockholm-based Swedish artists Maria W Horn & Mats Erlandsson is an ever-changing, long-term artistic exchange which draws on their individual practices as composers, to form a shared room in which synthesized analog, acoustic and digital sound, field-recordings, and non-normative harmonic structures are woven together to form a unique independent expression.
Residents of La Becque at the time of the concert, Maria W Horn & Mats Erlandsson presented their ongoing research into long-durational generative sound environments. Using site-specific compositional techniques, the duo are interested in the idea that events and emotions create inherent memories in a construction, object, or instrument, and that these traces or ghosts are available to us if we are willing to listen.
Concerts Sopraterra + Maria W Horn & Mats Erlandsson, Temple Saint-Théodule, La Tour-de-Peilz, 2025, photo Aurélien Haslebacher