Tiptoe through…

2025 Swiss Tour

ENSEMBLE DU BOUT DU MONDE

Ms. Noa Mick, soprano saxophone
Ms. Simona Castria, alto saxophone
Mr. Salvatore Castellano, tenor saxophone
Dr. Don-Paul Kahl, baritone saxophone

Short Description of Project

The saxophone quartet Ensemble du Bout du Monde (EBM) invites you on a journey with their new project “Tiptoe through...”. At the heart of this performance, musical works merge with the space in which they resonate, creating an immersive 360° sound experience. The audience is invited to rediscover the many meanings of this unique phenomenon. This project emerges from a creative collaboration with Basel-based composer Eleni Ralli, who presents a work written especially for the ensemble, weaving yet another magical thread into the fabric of the performance.

Program

Seiltanz (2018) - Karin Wetzel
Dance with Me (2025) + - Eleni Ralli
31 Anatomie Notturne (1998) - Nadir Vassena
Irrational (2018/2022) * - Chaya Czernowin
Lumineux (2017) * - Nicholas Tzortzis

* - indicates CH premiere
+ - indicates world premiere

Program Notes

This program explores the interplay between the perception of safety and reality, between truth and falsehood. The expression “tiptoeing” suggests a delicate navigation that takes place both quietly and on the edge of what is known as l'appel du vide. This concept manifests visually and philosophically, generating a tension between comfort and discomfort. When one tiptoes around something or someone, there is a simultaneous sense of safety and potential danger. Ensemble du Bout du Monde delves into this theme through a repertoire of new and traditional works for saxophone quartet, some of which incorporate the musicians’ actual movement, while others imply motion through their conceptual framework.

Before the concert officially begins, the audience is greeted by Seiltanz by Karin Wetzel. Each musician performs from a different part of the concert hall as the audience enters and finds their seats. Immersed in these sounds, the listeners experience both a meditation and an invitation, feeling as though they must literally move on tiptoe through the sonic landscape in order to settle. The music, a complex tapestry of subtle melodies and shifting harmonic interplay, intertwines with the audience’s movements, creating a dynamic interaction between performer and listener.

Eleni Ralli’s Dance with me is inspired by the harmony between physical movement and the direction of sound. Commissioned by EBM, the Greek-Swiss composer created this piece to place the listener within a shifting sonic environment, where the synchronized or asynchronous movements of the ensemble members, and the challenge of locating the sound source, demand an attentive engagement with both the acoustic and performative experience. In this choreographic composition, movement, sonic balance, and positioning are in constant flux, with the instruments appearing and disappearing as both physical objects and sound sources. From ensemble passages to solo interludes, the musicians interact with one another and with themselves as they move through the space, carrying their sound with them. The result is a solitary yet dynamic and virtuosic dance of sound and motion.

Even silence is permeated by movement and activity. Nadir Vassena’s 31 Anatomie Notturne seeks to portray various nocturnal situations. Although we are conditioned to rest at night, activity continues. Vassena translates this into sound, giving voice to both the simple nightly events of other living beings and to the more metaphysical renewal of energy within the human mind.

In contrast, Chaya Czernowin’s Irrational addresses the fragility of rational order that underlies musical discourse. Originally written for a diverse ensemble of instruments and voices, this piece was arranged for saxophone quartet at EBM’s request. Czernowin challenges the boundaries between stillness and movement within the ensemble, using the unique timbres of the saxophones to create a sonic landscape where the four voices sometimes merge into a cohesive whole and at other times fragment into wild, untamed gestures. Blending elements of comic relief within a resolutely modern sound world, this work explores the tension between risk and reward.

Nicholas Tzortzis’ Lumineux offers a strikingly visceral exploration of emotional intensity, light, and fracture. Inspired by Georges Aperghis’ Signaux, the work seeks to recreate the same volatile energy through a dense, luminous texture that alternates between sharp bursts of brightness and fragile stillness. Written in the wake of a personal period of emotional rupture, Lumineux channels raw human tension into sound - a process of confronting pain until it breaks open into catharsis. The ensemble becomes a vessel for this inner turbulence, constantly shifting between unity and disintegration, restraint and explosion. In this way, Lumineux fits within the broader Tiptoe through... concept, balancing vulnerability with brilliance, and stillness with the relentless urge to move toward light.

Throughout the concert, spoken texts are presented intermittently - sometimes understandable, sometimes not—guiding the performers to their next positions while simultaneously weaving a deeper conceptual narrative for the audience. This integral connection includes poems by H.W. Davies, spoken in multiple languages. The resulting auditory blurriness conceals and reveals meaning at the same time. Only at the end of the concert, once the poem has been “heard” in its entirety, does the conceptual thread become fully clear. Through the fusion of music, text, movement, and dance, the whispered idea of Tiptoe through... is brought to life and filled with meaning.

The concept of “tiptoeing” encompasses several dichotomies: the physical act of movement versus the pull of stillness, and the desire to express an idea without overexposing it. EBM’s program Tiptoe through... seeks to represent these oppositions both sonically and spatially, offering the audience an immersive experience within an unstable and uniquely textured sound world.

Concert Schedule:

5 December 2025 - Bern, Switzerland - PROGR - EVENT LINK
6 December 2025 - Basel, Switzerland - kHaus - EVENT LINK
7 December 2025 - Zurich, Switzerland - Wasserkirche - EVENT LINK
8 December 2025 - Lucern, Switzerland - Kali Gallery - EVENT LINK