KONTROL
KONTROL
Clarice Assad’s KONTROL is a theatrical orchestral work exploring the intersection of technology, autonomy, and performance. The piece imagines a near future in which a neural interface chip — implanted in every musician of a live symphony orchestra — grants a single presenter remote command over how and what they play.
Premiering at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music with violinist Philippe Quint and conductor Cristian Măcelaru, KONTROL unfolds as part product launch, part slow unravelling. Drawing on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons as source material, the work moves through humor, menace, and genuine unease as the technology begins to operate beyond anyone’s control.
The piece engages directly with themes of techno-feudalism, invisible infrastructure, and the body as a vulnerable interface — questions Assad considers among the most urgent of our time.
KONTROL: An Updatable Score
KONTROL exists in its original form as a fully realized work for soloist and ensemble. But the piece was conceived less as a fixed score than as a system — one that can be loaded, updated, and reconfigured depending on who’s performing it and where. Instrumentation, scale, and even structure can shift to meet an organization’s resources or audience, the same way an app adapts to whatever device it’s running on. The notes change; the idea underneath stays KONTROL.
KONTROL on Instagram
Watch
— The interface is open. Try it.
Original instrumentation
For Orchestra, Solo Violin and Presenter
Music, libretto and concept by Clarice Assad
Woodwinds
2 Flutes
2 Oboes
English Horn
2 Clarinets in B♭
Bass Clarinet in B♭
2 Bassoons
Brass
4 Horns in F
3 Trumpets in C
2 Trombones
Bass Trombone
Tuba
Percussion (2 players)
Percussion 1: snare drum, triangle, shaker, whip, vibraphone, glockenspiel, suspended cymbal, tam-tam, tambourine
Percussion 2: bass drum, woodblocks, vibraphone, sleigh bells, tam-tam
Timpani
Harp
Piano
Solo Violin
Strings
Technical requirements
Audio
- 1 wireless lavalier microphone (presenter)
- 1 wireless microphone system (solo violin)
- Stereo PA system, full range
- 1 stereo line input for presenter laptop (audio playback, no screen output required)
Video
- 1 large-format projection screen, upstage centre, visible to audience and conductor
- 1 projector, minimum 16:9, minimum 2 HDMI inputs with seamless source switching
- Source 1: presenter iPad (KONTROL interface)
- Source 2: playback device for pre-show and closing videos
Presenter
- 1 iPad running the KONTROL application
“With prompts, you can create websites and you can create music, and the things they’re trying to sell us — the tech bros — is that we aren’t of need anymore,” she said. “I wanted to reverse engineer that idea of ‘Can we use the technology of what’s happening and make art with it?'”
Clarice Assad
Composer
Press
San Francisco Classical Voice
The Sublime Antics of Losing Kontrol
Santa Cruz Sentinel
Clarice Assad’s tech-themed ‘Kontrol’ to premiere at Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music
San Francisco Classical Voice:
Cabrillo Contemporary Composers have something to say