Commissioned by the EBU and ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra

Premiere performance: @musikprotokoll – 9th of October 2026, Graz Helmut-List Halle

ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra

Lin Liao, conductor

Orchestra: 3/3/3/3 – 4/3/3/1 – 1/2/1Pf/1Hp – 14/12/10/8/6

4.2-channel fixed media, click-track

About Genesis of an Icon

We live in a reality characterized by a politics of idols and symbols. The nostalgic revival of symbols from the 20th century is just the symptom of a wider sympathy for strong images and icons. The cult of the image seems to be more relevant than actual reality, policy or values. And social media and the internet has helped create and grow a world full of micro-idols, representing entire subcultures. If our world is so active in the creation of icons, how does this mechanism actually look like? What is an icon?

The meaning of Eikon is deeply influenced by the theological meaning, as the visible image acting as living reference of the divine. The Eikon does not function merely as a reference mark to what the image represents. Through it the original idea actually operates.

Genesis of an Icon is a reflection on how icons come to matter, and how, once established, they begin to operate on us.

The declination that takes place through the icon is understood as a mode of emergence (emergere, to come to the surface): something enters into presence and resists a pull, to return to its origin. The Eikon is not simply the image of this process but the very act of resistance through which emergence sustains itself against that pull.

In my music I tried to represent this resistance through an asymmetry of climaxes. The piece constantly builds up something, which dissolves immediately after. As if a formed idea screams itself in the universe as loud as it can, but if nothing picks it up, it’s gone. It consumes itself. But there is a generating force that keeps trying. The piece represents a snapshot of this process.

Click here for Manuscript Score