This new work, developed for Elias Stemeseder‘s 2024-25 Roulette Commission, investigates rhythmic, melodic and formal implications arising from non-idiomatic treatment of an adjusted meantone tuning. Emerging from Stemeseder’s ongoing personal interest in historic keyboard instruments and the repertoire composed for them, the piece attempts to reconcile this fascination with his contemporary artistic practice and methods. Informed by research into the particular possibilities and constraints of Harpsichord temperaments with twelve notes per octave—and the aesthetic priorities that shaped their propagation—the work aims to deprioritize and deconstruct some of the goals these theories originally sought to accommodate.

The work is performed by the longstanding producer-duo Stemeseder-Lil Injure (S-L) and an ensemble of plucked, struck and electronic instruments, continuing S-L’s interest in the juxtaposition of archaic sound-making tools and practices with contemporary technology.

DoYeon Kim gayageum
Simon Kanzler digital signal processing, sound spatialisation
Shakoor Hakeem percussion
Kris Chen Lil’Injure drum set, percussion
Elias Stemeseder lautenwerk, synthesizers, samples

A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing. Watch below or on YouTube.

---

Elias Stemeseder is a pianist, keyboard instrumentalist, electronic musician and composer with an interest in synthesizing musical thought, discipline and tools from diverse time periods and geographic origins to create original sonic ordering principles. Performing on historic and contemporary (keyboard-) instruments, Stemeseder is part of the ensembles Stemeseder-Lillinger, Neon Dilemma, WRENS and the Elias Stemeseder Trio. He also works alongside luminaries such as Anna Webber, Adam O’Farrill, Craig Taborn, Ingrid Laubrock, Thomas Morgan and Peter Evans, performs as a soloist, and is a recording artist for Intakt Records.