Contact
Year 1988
First performance Spring 1988 - Mons Conservatory
Instrumentation flute, piano
Duration 8’
Score Arends Musikverlage
details
‘Prix de la Création musicale’ of the Académie de Lutèce, Paris, 1993
Homage to Carl Sagan
Until then, I had essentially written only pieces for solo piano. Contact was a turning point. It was my first work at the Conservatoire, in Jacqueline Fontyn’s composition class. Before leaving Turkey I had just read Carl Sagan’s novel, and I wanted to tell its mysterious story in music. The four parts of the piece follow one another very quickly. The first,
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Méditation dans l’espace, reflects the mystery of the universe, that signature behind the cosmos that scientists are trying to find. The second, Véga, translates the emotion that grips us in the face of this majestic star of such dazzling brightness. The third, Aveuglé, evokes an encounter with an intelligence that is too powerful for our vision. The great piano clusters and the high-pitched notes of the flute contribute by means of synaesthesia. The fourth movement, Pi 3,1416, refers us to the infinite question of the universe, using this number as a rhythmic and harmonic source.
I sent my score to Carl Sagan and in return he dedicated to me his book on the Voyager mission that has been exploring space since the 1970s.