It was very well received by a quiet, listening audience, who shouted bravos at the end.

I myself felt a strong personal involvement in the piece, feeling that it drew a lot of interior characters and thoughts out of me. I felt it was a very emotional journey through the story of the piece.

I now can’t wait to meet Olga in person in November, when we’ll give another performance, this time in Vienna. It will also give all of us a nice chance to come back to the piece with a little distance.

Here starts the life of this Music…

Read Antoine Tamestit’s blog “Olga Neuwirth and me: serving and discovering”.

It is so interesting to discover a piece. First of all the Viola part itself, which has so many different playing modes, from the sweetest, most lyrical passages, to the wildest, most extreme ones in speed and dynamics. Second of all the whole score, which, as much as I look at it and study it, will only come to life this evening, at the first reading with the RSO Wien and Peter Eötvös the conductor. Reading and hearing I should say, as many things will unveil themselves when I hear the different instrument colours, when I understand the subtle interactions between my voice and the whole orchestra.

I have heard Olga Neuwirth’s music but I can’t really say that I really know it. What I mean is, I am really discovering it, and going to discover it in the next days. I of course have a lot of inspiration, and most of all, my phone conversations with Olga and the many letters we exchanged. She, on her side, only heard my playing in CDs, and yet, despite all this, I feel a connection to her and her music, as I did the first time I heard one of her pieces. A kind of natural understanding of what she is expressing, like in the slow 4th movement, where she, as she says, mixes Schubert lieder and yiddish folk songs…

So here I am: on the verge of discovering new sounds, new colours, new feelings, and most of all, serving the creation of such an artist as Olga Neuwirth.

Olga Neuwirth Viola Concerto “Remnants of Song…An Amphigory” World Premiere on 10th October 2009 with Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra at Musikprotokoll Graz.  Further performances on 20th November at the Wien Modern Festival and 31st January 2010 with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Alejo Pérez. Co-commissioned for Antoine Tamestit by Borletti-Buitoni Trust with ORF, Musikprotokoll Graz, Wien Modern, DSO Berlin and Betty Freeman.

Antoine Tamestit on video on BBT website