Name: Stephan Heuberger | Frank Reinecke
Start: 2026-09-05T11:00:00
Location: Lukaskirche Lucerne

Stephan Heuberger

Frank Reinecke

Lucerne Festival

The piercing call of the carnyx likely sounded across Lake Lucerne more than 2,000 years ago, when Celtic tribes settled in Central Switzerland. Liza Lim has composed a concerto for this ancient bronze trumpet, nearly two meters long, asking herself “how ancient lineages of human and more-than-human creativity reside in bodies, cultural artefacts and the Deep Time histories of place, carrying seeds of resilience and also potential danger that may yet bloom again.” Far less exotic is the second solo instrument of the evening, the clarinet. Yet composer-in-residence Mark Andre — inspired by extensive sound experiments with Jörg Widmann — coaxes from it a wealth of entirely new timbres. 

Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO) | Elim Chan

KKL Luzern Concert Hall

Composer-in-residence Mark Andre has created an entire cycle of iv pieces. The title’s abbreviation stands for “introverted,” pointing to a journey into the interior of sound: fragile, pared-down music that operates at the edge of perception yet unfolds enormous intensity and opens a door to spiritual realms. His organ piece iv 15. Himmelfahrt deals with “processes of disappearance,” which Andre associates “with the situation of the Ascension, the dissolution of the body — or, in music, of the sonic body.” At one point, he even has the blower motor switched off during performance, reducing the wind pressure, and he further colors the sound through unusual registrations. “This creates a different kind of virtuosity — one where you’re not necessarily working with pitches, but with registrations,” explains the organist Stephan Heuberger. In the most recent work of the series, the duo iv 19. Pfingsten — Echos, premiered in 2025, Mark Andre calls for the unusual pairing of organ and double bass: two instruments with enormous ranges, yet utterly distinct in their sound worlds.