Sarah Hennies The Blue Hour

Sarah Hennies has long been celebrated for her ability to transform the simplest musical materials into profound listening experiences. Demanding a deep connection between the two performers The Blue Hour pairs Hennies&rsquo distinctive focus on repetition with an exploration of scales and melodies new to her work – their &lsquomeaning&rsquo in this case revealing itself to her only as the piece developed.

For Hennies repetition is never only a musical device. As she writes &ldquomy work for the past nearly 20 years has been based primarily on repetition and often exploring the ways in which repetition affects my life in other non-musical ways.&rdquo In The Blue Hour those repetitions take on the qualities of her recurring dreams: vivid and often unsettling states of being chased unable to reach a destination or caught in cycles that never resolve. The music too feels &ldquounfulfilled never reaching a resolution or destination&rdquo drawing the listener into a fragile suspended terrain.

Spanning ninety minutes the work also reflects Hennies&rsquo interest in how extended duration alters perception. Beyond seventy minutes she explains performance itself &ldquosomehow becomes more casual and &lsquonormal&rsquo but also reaches a new kind of focus that can only be achieved over such long durations.&rdquo In this dreamlike space where sound and time blur Sarah Saviet and Joseph Houston bring Hennies&rsquo vision into being with patience empathy and quiet intensity.

The Blue Hour is both intimate and expansive: a rare chance to experience music that transforms repetition memory and dream into a profound listening encounter.

Saviet/Houston Duo:

Sarah Saviet violin
Joseph Houston piano

Commissioned by Saviet/Houston Duo with support from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation SWR and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.