The prefix tele- is much used in the English language. It originates from the Greek word tēle (τηλε) with the meaning “far off” or “distance”. Tele, an ensemble work for seven players and a TV set, has strong connections to the global outbreak of coronavirus disease. During the pandemic, our social life was regulated and limited, international travel almost stopped, telecommuting replaced office work, and the children could not attend school lessons. Spatialization plays a central role in Tele: the musicians constantly move around in the performance space. Also, as the coronavirus regulations and restrictions tend to vary, the number of players on the stage changes. The distance and the lack of visual communication resemble a video conference call with a bad internet connection. Off-stage players can not quite cope with what is happening on stage, and at moments, the music becomes fragmentary and rhythmically aleatoric.

Tele has nine consecutive movements, each with some connection to the prefix tele-: I. Scope, II. Commuting, III. Path, IV. Tubby, V. Vision, VI. Metric, VII. Port, VIII. Shopping and IX. Kinesis. Around the middle of the work, the cellist turns the TV set on whilst the harpist plays a fictional broadcast station interval signal. Time seems to stop, and we can see a mosaic of news broadcast clips on the screen: a reminder of the relentless news stream on the coronavirus pandemic. TR, 2021