Tubalirum is a concert of seemingly very different instruments that must first get to know each other and become friends before they can really play together. Their unusual musical partnership is made even more interesting with the addition of various percussion instruments, and the repertoire holds a few surprises as well, with works by Corelli, Beethoven, and Pierre Boulez, among others.
Members of an orchestra are shipwrecked on a trip and find themselves lost in an unknown world. This world happens to be the concert hall... Opening in near-darkness with the violinist wandering around on the balcony. Yet, very quickly we hear that the violinist is not alone, as they are joined by sounds coming from another location in the hall. Confused by this, the violinist tries to interact with these sounds from afar, and then hears another sound she cannot see, the tuba.
The violin and tuba, though very different personalities, both have their instruments as their own "voice" which they use to communicate how they feel, wandering around on the different levels of balconies, trying to find an entrance to the stage. As they finally “land” onstage, they are intrigued by the acoustic of the hall, and invite the audience to discover it with us through body percussion. The main part of the concert now begins, as we three musicians confront each other directly for the first time without the rest of the orchestra.
The works featured are solo works of Bach, Xenakis, and Boulez, the duos are by Stefan Gryč, Beethoven, Marina Kifferstein, and Emma Lloyd. The piece of Emma Lloyd holds a special place in the storyline as it is a piece based in game theory. We display it through a "gameshow" moment where we all have to work together to literally build a piece of music (with audience involvement by rolling a huge foam die to determine the order of the musical lines).
Having each found their own musical voices, and collaborated on this concert together, they close the cycle with another work by Feldman.