Approaches to the cosmos
The Interfinity Festival in Basel has established itself in just a few years as a successful series of events that aims to combine music and science. The 2026 edition took place from March 7 to 20 under the motto «Exoplanets & Cosmos».
Surprisingly, of the dozen or so events, even those featuring exclusively contemporary music were very well attended. Despite generous support from Novartis as the main sponsor, the Interfinity Festival naturally depends on income. This is why some of the concerts in the first half of the festival featured very well-known artists - such as recorder player Maurice Steger, the Latvian Radio Choir, the 12 cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and organist Iveta Apkalna - who also filled larger halls. Nevertheless, they made reference to the festival theme in their programs. Lukas Loss, founder and director of the festival, can claim to be more consistent than other organizers in focusing on a specific theme, this year space, and presenting works and people that would otherwise not necessarily have been heard in Basel's cultural life. It was particularly interesting for the audience that several events took place in rooms that are otherwise used for other purposes or are not open to the public at all.
Galactic volume
In a former silo on the Franck Areal, where the coffee substitute product «Franck Aroma» or the coffee extract «Incarom» used to be produced and where the Tanzhaus Basel now has its home, the Supramodal Parser for a female singer, electric guitar, saxophone, percussion and electronics by the German sound artist and composer Alexander Schubert. In the words of the festival program, an immersion into «the inner cosmos of man: into ecstasy, sound and light, into the unconscious». Everyone will have felt differently whether they actually «dived deep into the subconscious and encountered desire, dreams and the ».
In any case Supramodal Parser, created for Ensemble Nikel and premiered by them in Vienna, is a Gesamtkunstwerk of music, fog, light and electronics that tests all boundaries. Its incredible volume, which you can physically feel despite the hearing protection provided at the entrance, is reminiscent of a crazy techno party. The text («twenty four hours, forward, bridge, circle, line, open, twitch, heavy drag, align the moths, feathers hit embrace, the froth» etc.) adds an additional sound rather than another layer of meaning. The performance by Mona Steinwidder (vocals), Paulina Pitenko (saxophone), Miguel Garcia (percussion, Denis Linnik (piano), Ruben Mattia Santorsa (electric guitar), Nika Schönfelder (lighting) and Alexander Schubert (electronics) was met with great enthusiasm.
Sky-wide sound spectrum of the electric guitar
The electric guitar was once again featured in two concerts with Israeli musician Yaron Deutsch, professor of contemporary music at the Basel University of Music since 2021. In the first, again at Tanzhaus Basel, but in a different silo on the extensive site, with Uli Fussenegger (double bass) and a small instrumental ensemble, works were performed that emphatically demonstrated the potential of the electric guitar. It fascinates with a spectrum ranging from great delicacy to sounds reminiscent of the engines of a jet taking off, produced thanks to various pedals or additional devices that act directly on the strings. All four works by Elena Rykova, Clara Iannotta, Tristan Murail and Catherine Lamb were convincing, with ondes martenot, primitive electronic instruments with a very specific timbre, providing an additional attraction in two of them. Lamb's Shadow/Line for eight instruments (2011) is a microtonal sound continuum from which individual colors emerge again and again, into which one likes to immerse oneself.
The second concert with Yaron Deutsch, now at the Gare du Nord, Basel's well-known venue for contemporary music in the former waiting room of the Badischer Bahnhof, featured violinist Irvine Arditti, one of the most legendary performers of contemporary music. The works performed, all written in the last eight years, did not impress with their spectacular virtuosity, but rather with their finely tuned sonority. Kelley Sheehans Hot Guts and Sarah Nemtsov's EMP, both for violin and electric guitar, were the most interesting pieces of the evening, with Deutsch once again eliciting astonishing sounds from his instrument. It was astonishing that Zeynep Toraman's Days that last forever, which was also a duo, created an almost sacred atmosphere reminiscent of César Franck. In this setting, the two solo pieces Tiding for electric guitar by Lisa Illean and Breath for solo violin by Rebecca Saunders is not so convincing: one is too selective and the other too introverted.
From Baikonur to the exoplanets
Various lectures and panels explored the festival theme in greater depth. The documentary film shown in the Novartis Gehry Auditorium was extremely interesting Space Tourists. Swiss director Christian Frei, who was awarded the director's prize at the renowned Sundance Festival 2010, was present in person. The elaborately researched film depicts both the departure of wealthy tourists into space from Baikonur in Kazakhstan and the recycling of rocket scrap by the local population. A spectacular broadening of horizons!
A new type of instrument, developed by Fabrizio Di Salvo and Roberto Maqueda, was presented in the bricklaying hall of the Gewerbeschule Basel: Le Slie's. It is based on the physical principles of the Leslie loudspeaker of the Hammond organ. Metal sound disks were distributed in a circle in the hall and were centrally controlled electronically and supplemented by reactive AI, reminiscent of a cosmic constellation. Each loudspeaker led its own life and the sounds wandered through the hall. Acoustically, however, this was not particularly interesting and, apart from a few quiet points, very aggressive, as if iron bars were being banged together. It remained a nice - if brutally loud - gimmick. This instrument might have sound potential. But it has not yet been fully exploited.
The last concert in the large Hall 1 of Messe Basel was the most unusual in terms of the outward appearance. The Basel Symphony Orchestra played the work in semi-darkness under the direction of Taiwanese conductor Lin Liao Exoplanets by British composer Robert Laidlow, with a spoken text by Henry Legg, which familiarized the audience with the world of exoplanets, the planets outside our solar system. This was accompanied by a light installation by Nick Verstand with lasers, light objects and thousands of reflections, as well as the reverberations of the huge exhibition hall.
All in all, an impressive spectacle. Laidlow's music bubbles, steams and billows. This is how one imagines the formation of celestial bodies and the cosmos, where there are apparently also planets that are glowing hot on one side and icy cold on the other, where it rains iron or quartz crystals swirl through the atmosphere in storms. Towards the end of the work, underscored by striking trumpet sounds, the music takes on a major key and is no longer very far removed from Richard Strauss’ Zarathustra removed. In addition to the trumpets, the strings, especially the violins, can also be heard well, as well as the varied percussion; the woodwinds hardly come into their own.
Interesting is the AI-based instrument Stacco, invented by Laidlow and played by him, which contributes «artificial» sounds. The audience Exoplanets, played with aplomb by the orchestra, was very well received, certainly also because of the multitude of acoustic and visual impressions. Whether the work - a composition commissioned by Interfinity and the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) - can exist musically without «staging» seems questionable to me. However, the world premiere in a symphony concert by the LPO in London last November was certainly well received. In Basel, the work helped Interfinity 2026 to a crowning finale.
