Alarm Will Sound To Perform ‘This Music Should Not Exist’ At Carnegie Hall

Alarm Will Sound, the contemporary music ensemble known for testing the boundaries of musical performance, will present a program resembling a live podcast, featuring the music of György Ligeti and titled This Music Should Not Exist on Friday, March 16 at 7:30 p.m. in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall.

Beginning in 2014, Alarm Will Sound—in collaboration with Nadia Sirota, the group’s violist and host of the “Meet The Composer” podcast—began to develop a new concert format designed to tell stories about select composers and their work alongside performances of the work itself, creating a unique listening experience. Their initial project, Splitting Adams, focused on composer John Adams and was broadcast on “Meet The Composer” and recorded for Cantaloupe Records in 2017.

Resembling a podcast itself, Alarm Will Sound’s March 16 concert at Carnegie Hall blends music and pre-recorded sounds to create a soundscape of György Ligeti’s life—from his escape from a Nazi labor camp to his seeking refuge in Vienna during Soviet occupation of his native Hungary. Works featured in this performance include Ligeti’s Continuum, Piano Concerto, and Chamber Concerto with the music’s dense melodic webs and cascading rhythms—along with a host of other experimental sounds, shapes, and forms—embodying the composer’s tumultuous life. A pre-concert talk starts at 6:30 p.m. in Zankel Hall with Alan Pierson, Artistic Director and Conductor of Alarm Will Sound, and violist and host of WQXR’s Meet The Composer Nadia Sirota, in conversation with Jeremy Geffen, senior director and artistic adviser at Carnegie Hall.