In SAFRAN (2017), Swedish composer Lisa Streich explores scent through sound, translating the elusive sweetness and bitterness of saffron into an intricate, hovering musical landscape. Written for violin and motorized piano, the piece unfolds as a network of delicate gestures, small directional shifts, and fleeting colours—an “abstract plan,” as Streich describes it, that defines itself through motion rather than arrival.
Performed here by Hannah Weirich (violin) and Ulrich Löffler (piano), both long-time members of Ensemble Musikfabrik, the work gains an additional visual dimension through the sensitive video editing of Janet Sinica and the audio production of Wolfgang Ellers. Produced and published by Ensemble Musikfabrik, the video highlights the ensemble’s commitment to contemporary music and to exploring extended instrumental possibilities.
“SAFRAN is a piece that smells or attempts to recall scents… an abstract plan of a fleeting network that has no end points but defines itself in its floating existence.” — Lisa Streich (2017)
About Lisa Streich
Born in 1985 in Norra Råda, Sweden, Lisa Streich is one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music. A composer and organist educated in Berlin, Stockholm, Salzburg, Paris, and Cologne, she has studied with figures such as Helmut Lachenmann and Wolfgang Rihm. Her work is known for its quiet intensity and emotional precision.
Streich often creates motorized instruments to extend the expressive range of her pieces, seeking a universal, de-personalized sound world shaped by contrasts, fragility, and the re-imagining of familiar harmonies. Her music has been commissioned or performed by leading institutions including the Lucerne Festival, Berliner Philharmoniker, Kölner Philharmonie, Ensemble intercontemporain, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, and the Swedish Radio Choir.
Among numerous honours, she has received the Ernst von Siemens Composers’ Prize, the Hindemith Prize (2024), a Roche Young Commission, and residencies at the Villa Massimo in Rome. Conductors such as Alan Gilbert and Kirill Petrenko have praised the individuality and personality of her work, noting its immediate recognizability.
Subscribe to our newsletter