At first glance everything seems quite straightforward: a classical concert guitar doesn't weigh much and can easily be taken anywhere. Casually propped on the knee, not much preparation is necessary to start playing. We have to forget about all of this because this collection of new works is about strength and power. About physical borderline experiences and about a sound spectrum that remains a mystery: How can these sounds come out of an acoustic guitar? And how did they get in there? As a matter of fact, everything you hear in this recording comes from nothing more than a guitar played by a musician. No use had been made of live electronics or the like, even though sometimes the music sounds as if there had been. Only a few mechanical means were used to expand the scope of common playing techniques.
Klara Tomljanovic knows all the composers involved personally, some of them for many years; and perhaps it is this longstanding bond of trust that makes this challenging otherness of the guitar possible in the first place. Added to that, both the performer and the composers were deeply committed to this project: Not only could the composers - who are not guitarists - borrow an instrument from Tomljanovic's, but also were encouraged to make use of the guitarist's playing techniques, which she had developed over decades, in joint try-outs. Possibly both fuelled the sometimes hazardous love of experimentation. Paradoxical or not: what started with the soloist's personal abilities, playing techniques and physical conditions led, in the end, to an immense expansion of these very capacities.
Born in Slovenia and based in Karlsruhe and Basel, guitarist Klara Tomljanovic studied at the Hochschule fur Musik Freiburg as well as at the Musik-Akademie Basel. Already during her studies, she became interested in contemporary music and started playing in the Aleph Guitar Quartet; the beginning of her international career.
In 2021 she received a grant from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, together with the Festival Imago Sloveniae. With their support, four composers - Marton Illes, Steingrimur Rohloff, Tomaz Bajzelj and Alberto Carretero - were commissioned to write a piece of music for her.
