Concert | Slovak Premiere
Duration: 60 min | No language barrier
American composer Ellen Fullman has devoted decades of her artistic practice to exploring just intonation, the harmonic overtones of vibrating strings, and the physical nature of sound itself. Based on this research, she developed her own instrument, The Long String Instrument—an installation of strings stretching for dozens of metres through a performance space and tuned according to the principles of just intonation. The instrument produces a remarkably rich overtone spectrum, making subtle harmonic relationships audible that often remain hidden on conventional instruments.
The instrument is custom-built for each venue in which it is presented. Its construction and tuning require at least three days, and the strings must be tensioned using counterweights weighing several hundred kilograms.
Fullman performs the instrument by walking alongside the strings while gently drawing her fingers along their entire length. Unlike all conventional string instruments, which are played across the strings, The Long String Instrument is performed longitudinally. Depending on where the performer touches each string, different harmonic overtones emerge from proportional divisions of its length. As several strings are played simultaneously, these overtone series overlap to create slowly shifting harmonic fields, in which the harmony seems to flow and transform with the performer’s movement through the space. Some listeners describe the experience of hearing The Long String Instrument as being like listening to a concert from inside a piano.
Ellen Fullman
Ellen Fullman is an American composer and performer. After graduating in sculpture from the Kansas City Art Institute, she began developing The Long String Instrument in her St. Paul, Minnesota studio in 1980. Inspired by composer and instrument builder Harry Partch and Alvin Lucier’s Music on a Long Thin Wire, she created an expansive instrument capable of producing sustained, organ-like overtone drones unlike anything else in contemporary music—a sound world as distinctive as her unique vision of the instrument itself.
About the pssst Series
pssst is a concert series dedicated to contemporary and experimental music by artists who relentlessly explore the outer edges of musical thought. We live in an era of unprecedented diversity in musical practices, composition, and instrument-making. So we ask:
- How many different ways can a guitar be played?
- Where do the boundaries of experimentation and improvisation lie?
- What lies beyond the European tradition of grand concert halls and the orderly logic of tonal harmony?
OOO Association
OOO Association was founded in the spring of 2020 to create a dedicated space for exploring the world through sound art, contemporary music, and intermedia practices. It was established by musician, educator, and intermedia artist Fero Király and dramaturge, cultural manager, and performer Eva Vozárová.
The association’s artistic and curatorial work focuses on projects that examine the complex relationships between human and more-than-human beings, engaging with acoustic ecology, deep listening, environmental and social issues, as well as disciplines including anthropology, philosophy, mathematics, and other fields of knowledge. OOO Association favours thoughtful and environmentally sensitive artistic interventions.
The pssst series is part of the New New Music project within Trenčín 2026. Trenčín 2026 is financially supported by the City of Trenčín, the Trenčín Self-Governing Region, and the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic. The European Union is a project partner.
GDPR notice: Please note that photographs and video recordings will be made during the event and may be published afterwards.
