SCIENCE WEEK Art/Science Programme
Art, in its continuous transformation, has always been linked to technological achievements and the new ideas they inspire. Today, however, due to the direct impact that scientific and technological advances have on our daily lives, the relationship between science and technology and creative fields is closer than ever. Technology has not only transformed artistic practices; it has also helped to shape and enrich how we perceive and understand the world, incorporating a positive and dynamic principle—uncertainty—which acts both as a limitation and as a critical driving force. With the aim of deepening the connections between art and science, since 2024 the CGAC has collaborated with the Galician Supercomputing Centre (CESGA) and the Galician Institute for High Energy Physics (IGFAE) in developing a programme of activities in which both areas of knowledge overlap and intertwine.
This year, throughout November, the CGAC will host a concert by the Galician jazz trio Sumrrá and a new edition of the Quantum Dance Workshop, as well as a lecture and piano recital by the composer, concert pianist and music theorist Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin.
12 NOVEMBER
7 VISIÓNS. SUMRRÁ CONCERT
Time: 8.00 p.m. | Venue: Auditorium | Free admission until full capacity is reached
The jazz trio Sumrrá will give a themed and commented concert focusing on their album 7 Visións (2021). The pieces on this recording evoke the perpetual dance of the universe (‘Forzas gravitatorias’), reflect on the timeless question of our peripheral place in the cosmos (‘Periferia universal’), and speculate on what might have happened after the Big Bang (‘13 700 millóns de anos despois’).
For this occasion, they will premiere a new composition, ‘A oitava visión. O zoom cuántico,’ inspired by quantum physics and created especially for this event. The piece plays with the idea of the transition from classical physics to the quantum revolution, and with the notion of a single reality that changes according to position, proximity, attention or technology.
To link the album’s repertoire and the new piece with various concepts in physics, the event will feature Manuel Caamaño, researcher at IGFAE and musician, who will analyse the works performed during the concert from both a scientific and artistic perspective.
14 NOVEMBER
APPLIED QUANTUM PHYSICS. QUANTUM DANCE WORKSHOP
Time: 8.00 p.m. | Venue: Auditorium | Free activity with prior registration required
This workshop, led by dancer and choreographer Paula Quintas and Héctor Álvarez Pol, professor in the Department of Particle Physics at the University of Santiago de Compostela and researcher at IGFAE, proposes an encounter between science and art. It explores how the principles of quantum physics —superposition, uncertainty, entanglement and observation— can inspire new forms of creation and movement in contemporary dance.
Through body exercises, guided improvisations and theoretical reflections, participants will experiment with the relationship between body, energy and perception. The workshop investigates how the presence of the observer can alter scenic reality, how multiple choreographic possibilities can actually coexist, and how movement can become a metaphor for quantum behaviour.
It invites artists, dancers and anyone curious about dance and quantum physics to inhabit the space between the visible and the invisible, the tangible and the potential, creating a practice that combines scientific thought, bodily intuition and stage experimentation.
FURTHER INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION
27–28 NOVEMBER
LECTURE AND CONCERT BY RAKHAT-BI ABDYSSAGIN
For this final activity, the CGAC will be honoured to host Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin (Almaty, Kazakhstan, 1999) — composer, concert pianist, music theorist, researcher and Doctor of Philosophy. Known as “the Kazakh Mozart”, he has been composing music since the age of nine. He is the author of operas and more than 150 musical works, ranging from chamber pieces to large-scale symphonic compositions. His music has been performed in prestigious concert halls such as the Berlin Philharmonie, Konzerthaus Berlin, Konzerthaus Vienna, Mozarteum Salzburg, Carnegie Hall New York and Royal Festival Hall London.
He has taken part in the Impuls Academy in Graz and in various international festivals. Since the age of 13, he has given lectures worldwide. He is the author of academic articles and monographs. At 12, he published Facets of Harmony, a collection of his own compositions, and at 14, the unique volume Mathematics and Contemporary Music. Rakhat-Bi has also been a visiting professor at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and UCL.
In 2024, Springer Nature —the prestigious scientific publisher known for issuing the groundbreaking works of Einstein, Planck, Pauli and Heisenberg— published his book Quantum Mechanics and Avant-Garde Music: Shadows of the Void.
27 NOVEMBER: Lecture: Quantum Mechanics and Avant-Garde Music: Shadows of the Void
Time: 7.00 p.m. | Venue: Auditorium | Free admission until full capacity is reached
In this talk, the artist will introduce and explain to a general audience the main ideas of his 2024 book of the same title. The presentation will cover the different connections between quantum physics and contemporary music, from chronological interrelations to metaphorical correlations between fundamental phenomena of quantum mechanics —such as Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, Pauli’s exclusion principle and quantum entanglement— and their reflection in selected works by Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, Arnold Schönberg and others, as well as in specific performance techniques.
He will also discuss the place that classical music occupied in the lives and work of great scientists such as Albert Einstein, Max Planck and Werner Heisenberg, amongst others. The session will conclude with a reflective segment addressing the more philosophical aspects of quantum theory and relativity.
CONFERENCE VIDEO Quantum Mechanics and Avant-Garde Music: Shadows of the Void
28 NOVEMBER: Piano recital by Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin
Time: 8.00 p.m. | Venue: Auditorium | Free admission until full capacity is reached
Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin will give a solo piano recital that takes the audience on a journey through different periods in the history of music, featuring works by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Scriabin, amongst others.
The recital will come to a close with Rondine piangente, a composition by Abdyssagin himself, in which the composer intertwines his personal musical language with the pianistic tradition that gives meaning to the programme.