WITTEN — Composer Chaya Czernowin premiered her chamber theatre score "The Red-Haired Man" and closed the program with her vocal work "No! A Lament for the Innocent" at this year's Witten Days for New Chamber Music festival in Germany. The festival, organized by West German Radio, takes place each spring in the Ruhr Valley and has run in its current form since 1969. This year's edition carried the theme "The Present / Inescapable" and featured composers from nineteen countries, including Cuba, Brazil, Japan, and South Korea.

"The Red-Haired Man," scored for six musicians, was performed by members of the Köln-based Hand Werk Ensemble. The piece is based on a miniature story by Daniil Kharms, who wrote absurdist literature under Stalinism and suffered as a result.

The festival program also included Czernowin's "Seltene Erde" for double-bass and ensemble, performed by Evan Hulbert and Klangforum Wien under the direction of Elena Schwarz. The Diotima Quartet performed her string quartet "EZOV (Moss)." The word "ezov" means "moss" in modern Hebrew and refers to a Middle Eastern herb that was part of ancient Jewish ritual.

"No! A Lament for the Innocent" closed the festival's program. The work exists in two versions: one for two antiphonal female voices and two ensembles, and another for voice and ensemble against prerecorded tracks. The version presented at the festival featured live vocals by Sofia Jernberg, recorded vocals by Keren Motseri, and was conducted by Yalda Zamani with the WDR Symphony.

Czernowin began composing the work around the time of the first Trump Administration with the United States' immigrant policies as her focus, and completed it in 2024 with a focus on Israel's destruction of Gaza.

Czernowin was born in Haifa in 1957. She studied at IRCAM in Paris and at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music in Germany. Her next opera will be based on Thomas Mann's novella "Der Erwählte" ("The Holy Sinner").