Sonic Matter: Pierre-André Valade & Leila Josefowicz

The Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich is once again taking part in this year's Sonic Matter new music festival. At the centre of the programme is the violin concerto "Concentric Paths" by our Creative Chair Thomas Adès, written in 2005. It is "perhaps the most important violin concerto of the century so far", wrote one critic after a "breathtaking performance" in 2016; Leila Josefowicz was the soloist on stage at the time and is now also performing the work in Zurich. There are also two works by female composers to discover: Hannah Kendall, a British composer of Guyanese origin who now lives in New York, searches in her music for a sound world "between 'Afro' and 'Euro'", as she once said. The works of Berlin-based South Korean Unsuk Chin also reveal a wide variety of influences - but above all her very own way of dealing with them. She once said in an interview that she "never feels like she belongs": an uncomfortable but highly productive attitude from a creative point of view.

The Sonic Matter Festival takes place from Thu 26 Feb to Sun 01 Mar 2026.