ensemble mosaik presents works by Zeynep Toraman and Bertram Wee

As part of the “Progetto Positano”, both were given the opportunity to live and work for a month at the Kempff Cultural Foundation’s Casa Orfeo in Positano on Italy’s Amalfi Coast. The results of their work will be presented following their residencies in Italy in a double portrait concert with the ensemble mosaik in the Betonhalle at silent green in Berlin.

Line-up:

• ensemble mosaik
• Enno Poppe, presenter and conductor

Programme:

Zeynep Toraman:

Slow Poem (v.2) those thin clouds above (2023)

for violin and viola

Destiny’s Multiple Bodies (2026) world premiere

for vibraphone, violin, viola and cello

Betram Wee:

Chingchongdingdong

for amplified sextet

my body, broken for your amusement [vessel II]

for keyboard with talkbox player

bluebird (2026) world premiere

for ensemble with live electronics

• ‘Progetto Positano’ is an initiative of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation in collaboration with ensemble mosaik and the Kempff Cultural Foundation.

Zeynep Toraman is a composer and scholar from Istanbul who lives in Berlin. In her practice-based research, she explores interactions between texts in the broadest sense, using her personal library as an archive and incorporating autobiography, poetry, fiction and history into her musical compositions. Her works have been performed by ensembles such as Contrechamps, the Ensemble Musikfabrik, the Quatuor Diotima and the Wet Ink Ensemble, as well as at festivals including the Festival Archipel and the IRCAM ManiFeste. She completed her PhD in music composition at Harvard University in 2023 and works closely with the filmmaker Burak Çevik.

Singapore-based composer Bertram Wee writes music in which the experience of being takes centre stage. He is also active as a performer of contemporary music, notably as part of the bl-duo with his partner Lynette Yeo, and as a founding member of the music collective ‘weird aftertaste’. Wee’s works have been performed at events such as Wien Modern, hcmf//, Ultraschall Berlin, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Maerzmusik (Berlin), AngelicA (Bologna), Musik 21 (Hanover), the BBC Proms, the Thailand International Composers Festival, the Asian Composers League Festival and the Singapore International Festival of Arts.

Progetto Positano is a support grant for young composers, launched in 2017 by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation in collaboration with ensemble mosaik: each year, two grant holders are invited to live and work for a month at the Casa Orfeo of the Kempff Cultural Foundation in Positano on Italy’s Amalfi Coast. Following the residency in Italy, ensemble mosaik presents the scholarship holders’ works as part of a double-portrait concert in Berlin.