META•RYTHMIC brings intercultural composition to ESMUC through IN.TUNE.
A shared rhythm across borders
On 1 May, the Orchestra Hall at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC) became a meeting point for musical traditions, creative experimentation and international collaboration. Hosted within the framework of the IN.TUNE European Universities Alliance, the world premiere of META•RYTHMIC brought together composition students from ESMUC and performers from the National University of Music Bucharest (UNMB) in a collective chamber music project shaped across borders.
Supported through the IN.TUNE student project call, META•RYTHMIC was created as a collaborative work for violin, clarinet and piano. More than a concert, it was the culmination of an artistic process that connected students and composers from Spain, France and Romania through a shared exploration of rhythm and cultural exchange.
Performed by NOISE404 Ensemble, an emerging collective of young composers and performers dedicated to contemporary music, the premiere invited audiences to hear how distinct musical traditions can be transformed into a single artistic voice.
From traditional dances to contemporary composition
META•RYTHMIC began with a simple but ambitious challenge: how can different musical cultures create something together without losing their individual character?
The compositional process was built around intercultural exchange. Teams from Spain, France and Romania each selected three dances representative of their own musical heritage and shared these materials through a common digital archive. Rather than treating the dances as fixed references, the composers explored them as creative starting points. From these traditional sources, participants extracted characteristic rhythmic patterns that became the foundation of the project.
Working with this shared material, each composer created nine short musical fragments of up to twenty seconds, written for solo, duo or trio combinations. Every fragment incorporated rhythms originating from all three cultures, ensuring that collaboration remained central to the creative process. The fragments were then gathered, organised and woven together into a single continuous work. Arranged according to musical coherence and dramatic flow, the final score emerged as a collective composition shaped by many voices yet experienced as one musical journey.
Bringing collaboration to the stage
At ESMUC, META•RYTHMIC was performed in trio formation by Larisa Nicolae on violin, Alin Popa on clarinet and Sofia de la Hoz on piano, all Master’s students at UNMB and members of NOISE404 Ensemble.
The concert also featured the participation of ESMUC composition students Lucas Altaba, Lucia Broto, Jan Corberó and Stephanie Macchi, reinforcing the project’s spirit of exchange between institutions and artistic communities.
Through collective creation and the sharing of musical materials and cultural references, META•RYTHMIC created a space where contemporary composition became a dialogue rather than an individual practice. Romanian, Spanish and French rhythmic traditions met not as separate identities, but as elements of a shared musical language.
The project also looks beyond its ESMUC premiere, with further presentations planned at participating institutions including UNMB in Bucharest and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMD Paris).
A collective vision
META•RYTHMIC was directed, initiated and managed by Andrei Virgil Popescu. The participating composers were Guilherme de Almeida, Lucas Altaba Alonso, Lucia Broto, Sophia Chambon, Vlad Ciocoiu, Jan Corberó, Vlad-Cristian Ghinea, Stephanie Macchi, Andrei Petrache, Andrei Virgil Popescu, Oana Vardianu and Agnes Vrânceanu.
By connecting institutions, performers and composers through shared creation, META•RYTHMIC demonstrates how intercultural collaboration can shape new approaches to contemporary music – turning rhythm into a common language that travels beyond borders.
Photo credits: Susanna Piquer