(from deSingel website)

The composer Luc Brewaeys is fifty and we intend to celebrate it, together with Ictus! The basis for his new composition is 'Jocasta', a new work for mezzo, ensemble and electronic sounds that Ictus created in 2003. Brewaeys strips away the lyrical vocal score and makes room for two soloists on flute and horn ... as if Oedipus could thereby escaped his destiny!
And what is a birthday party without super guests? Brewaeys has invited his spiritual father and his older intellectual brother: Jonathan Harvey and Tristan Murail. What they have in common is the inevitable but also sublime catastrophe and the almost unreal transcendence. This paradox is conveyed by Brewaeys in a precarious balancing act between melodic linearity, a fusion of acoustic and electronic sounds and the pursuit of tonal unity based on the relationship between overtones. 'Double concerto' opens with a double cadence for flute and horn and moves into electronic and dense ensemble parts. Brewaeys composed this for Ictus somewhere between Vilvoorde and Montreal…

(from the Brewaeys website)

Double Concerto
The "Double Concerto" was commissioned by the Ictus Ensemble. They first performed the work conducted by Georges-Elie Octors and with Michael Schmidt on flutes and Bruce Richards on horn at the Concertgebouw in Bruges on January 9, 2010. The second performance followed almost immediately afterwards at deSingel in Antwerp (on Jan. 21).

The work starts with a lengthy double cadenza for the soloists, with some interventions of the electronic sounds, which mostly are based on instrumental sounds (from the soloists or from the ensemble). The parts are physically very demanding, although melodies take an important role in this work. Some of the material played afterwards is based on my previous Ictus commission "Jocasta" (2003), but I have extended the harmonies and eliminated lines which I considered being "too sweet".

The score is dedicated to Lukas Pairon, director of Ictus and longtime friend.