Sirene Segmenti

Dedicated to Olaf Katzer  and Auditivvokal Dresden for its premiere on 15.09.17 in Dortmund during CHOR.COM as part of the program „Vox populi?!“

Sirene segmenti is an homage to Demetrio Stratos and a recognition of the United Nations “International Day of Democracy”.

Since antiquity, sirens were amorously dangerous creatures, who, part-bird and part-woman, lured sailors with their enchanting calls and songs to shipwreck on their rocky coasts. More fitting for my piece than Homer or Joyce, is a passage from the short story by Franz Kafka, The Silence of the Sirens (Das Schweigen der Sirenen, 1917), “Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. And though admittedly such a thing never happened, it is still conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence certainly never.”