A House of Call

On September 2, 2022, ›A House of Call‹ with Ensemble Modern Orchestra under the baton of Vimbayi Kaziboni will be released at ECM Records.

The pieceis a cycle of invocations, prayers, poems and songs for large orchestra. It incorporates recordings of sounds and voices from all over the world collected by Heiner Goebbels during his travels, research, and chance encounters. The cycle is a response to the history of these recordings and to their complexity, rawness and radiance. In this secular ›responsorium‹, the orchestra accompanies and supports the voices, answers and challenges them.

This large scale work has been developed, from the outset, in cooperation with the Ensemble Modern and reflects, the composer says, the unique nature of his 35 year collaboration with the orchestra. »I’ve done many projects with them that I could not have done with any other ensemble. There was this great trust from the beginning: they never resisted the risk of doing something new. As I’m not a virtuoso in dealing with large scores, I prefer to react to what I hear, so I can develop a sound that emerges during rehearsals, while working with individual musicians or the ensemble. Having this possibility is incomparable and I have made much use of it.«

A co-production of ECM and the Bayerischer Rundfunk, ›A House of Call‹ was recorded at Munich’s Prinzregententheater in September 2021.