the crack (2017) is the first musical exploration of an idea that would later lead me to the opera Der Riss [The Rift]: that a rupture – in the body, in memory, in space – must not be narrated, but made audible.

The melodic raw material originates from the folk music of the Balkans – a region whose acoustic memory remains deeply shaped by war to this day. These melodies are not quoted but shattered: rhythmically shifted, instrumentally fragmented, and hurled through the orchestral space. For a fleeting moment, the ear recognizes something familiar before it shatters once again.

While memories of the atrocities of the 20th century slowly fade, we are already witnessing the next wave of military conflicts – elsewhere, but following the exact same patterns. the crack does not inquire into political causes. It concerns what remains in the body when narration ceases: a frequency memory that refuses to be historicized.

War is part of my biography and the biography of many people who carry this experience with them without speaking of it daily. The piece does not attempt to tell this story. It attempts to open a rift.