Sikorski
Swarm
A shoal can consist of thousands of small fish. Hordes of grasshoppers can have billions of insects. A starling murmuration happens when up to hundred thousand starlings gather into a flock. All these form swarms.
Eight string players can also form a swarm. It requires swarm intelligence from the musicians!
Swarm for double string quartet was commissioned by Virtuosi di Kuhmo, and finished around the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic in spring 2020. This meant, that the planned world premiere in July 2020 at the Hauho Music Festival in Tavastia, Finland, had to be moved forward into the unforeseeable future. Luckily the situation has got better, and the premiere now takes place in Hattula New Church on 8th of July 2021.
Swarm consists of three movements, played without a pause, and has the duration of 15-16 minutes. The first movement (Shoal) moves around softly under the sea surface, where a shoal of anchovies use their swarm intelligence to evade the attacks of predators. The second movement (Horde) sees teeming hordes of insects to overwhelm a landscape with their ostensibly haphazard swarming. The inspiration for the last movement (Flock) comes from immeasurable number of birds moving around, and changing the form of the swarm and direction in unexpected ways. And in the end the flock disappears into the horizon.
There is a nonet version of the work, with an added double bass.
The composition of Swarm was funded by the Madetoja Foundation and MES.
Osmo Tapio Räihälä 6/2021
