Tiding III

Tiding III is the third in a series of pieces partly inspired by Christiane Baumgartner’s 2013 wood cut Deep Water. Illean especially admires the way the “image evokes the perception of a liquid form through very precise means…The woodcut images approach abstraction – appearing endless – but bear the personal traces of an assiduous, intimate working method.” Alongside soprano saxophone, electric guitar, and piano, there is also a part for re-tuned prepared acoustic guitar, laid flat and played by a percussionist with a tone bar and mallet or brush.

Tiding III combines carefully calibrated non-tempered tunings and a regularly tuned piano to create complex sonorities that are diffracted and transformed at different speeds along multiple planes. The pre-recorded sounds (created with Ensemble Nikel) foreground quiet details in the piano resonance and auditory phenomena and obscure the distinction between electronic and acoustic sounds. “As when one contemplates the natural world itself," Illean notes, “my hope is to create the conditions where time can be experienced differently, and where both those performing and those joining in listening are attuned to subtlety and the potential for gentle change.”

The piece, which appeared alongside works by Alex Paxton and Rebecca Saunders, was commissioned by the Festival d'Automne à Paris 2025 and Ensemble Nikel, with the support of Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation; Ensemble Nikel have announced the Swiss premiere of the piece at the Gare du Nord, Basel, on May 22, 2026.

The Tiding series explores elemental patterns. Tiding II, for saxophone, percussion, piano and electronics, was premiered in 2021 by Trio Accanto and the SWR Experimental Studio at the Donaueschinger Musiktage. It featured on arcing, stilling, bending, gathering, the celebrated 2024 portrait album from NMC, performed by David Zucchi and GBSR Duo, who gave the UK premiere of the work at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

Rebecca Saunders, Alex Paxton, Lisa Illean