IN / OUT

The cello forgets its noble manners in Violeta García's minimalism, dark ambient and experimental noise.

Argentinian cellist, composer and improviser Violeta García works at the point where the cello stops behaving properly. "I would like to open new sound spaces that invite the audience on an inner voyage," she says. But the voyage is not weightless or serene.

Across nine concentrated pieces, García moves between minimalist contemporary music, dark ambient and experimental noise, using extended cello techniques, microtonality and alternative tunings to make one instrument sound like many.

García does not simply sit behind the cello. Experimenting freely with extended techniques, she prepares it, bows it, pushes it, strikes it. She tilts it, spins it, drags it down in an infernal dance. The cello answers back with pressure, drone, scrape, howling pulse. Underneath it all, flashes of melancholy. Extreme music, close to the ground.

The concert is part of Ultima Thule: The Closest Possible Sound. See the full programme here.

Want to know more?

• Extended techniques are ways of playing an instrument beyond its standard classical vocabulary. For the cello, this can mean bowing with unusual pressure, playing behind the bridge, striking or rubbing the body of the instrument, preparing the strings with objects, or using the voice as part of the instrument's sound world.
• The material Violeta García brings to Ultima is drawn from her album IN / OUT, recorded in an underground reservoir in Geneva, where the site’s natural acoustics become part of the music. Drawing inspiration from composers such as La Monte Young, Eliane Radigue, Jürg Frey and Arvo Pärt, García brings together sacral minimalism and acoustic experimentation.
• García's concert is part of Ultima's 2026 focus on noise, which also includes concerts with Lasse Marhaug, Merzbow, Nina Garcia & Anna Gaïotti and Øyvind Mæland and Yann Leguay.

NB. Parts of the concert may get loud, but we have you covered. Earplugs will be available at the venue.