Timkat. An African Celebration.

For symphony orchestra.
53 pages of score and 33 parts. PDF €39.90

Timkat means baptism in Amharic. It is Ethiopia's largest religious and national festival, celebrating the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. For two days, every year on 18 and 19 January, millions of people throughout the country parade through the streets, magnificently dressed in white robes, singing and dancing in accordance with specific traditional forms. I experienced this celebration in Addis Ababa in 2016, and the impression was overwhelming. After my return, I wrote my first piece for symphony orchestra about it. I tried to capture the endless procession, the exuberant celebration and the pathos of the occasion in equal measure in my music. The marimba, an instrument of African origin, plays a particularly important role. The strings often play pizzicato, reminiscent of African plucked instruments.
Timkat is a unique celebration of joy, and that is how it should be played. Just as the celebration is divided into the solemn, hour-long procession itself and the singing and dancing (usually in a circle with certain props), Timkat also has two themes: a solemn, marching theme in 3/2 time and a dance-like, exuberant theme in the ‘rolling groove’ of 18/8 time. The procession theme harmoniously ascends the steps from the first to the fourth and fifth steps, building tension throughout the piece. The dance theme, on the other hand, always leads back to the tonic via the subdominant and dominant, as a reference to the circle dances. Melodically, it follows the call and response pattern. The violin, oboe, clarinet, trumpet and flute have short solos – just as individual dancers have short solos in circle dances. Shortly before the end, after a long and virtuoso marimba solo, there is a kind of collective vision, a ‘flashback’ to the moment when Jesus was baptised by John. The piece ends with an intensification of the dance theme: at the end, everyone dances along.

In February 2025, I had the great fortune that the Arbon Symphony Orchestra premiered Timkat as part of their ‘Africa’ programme – three times in one weekend. Here you can see Leo Gschwend conducting the piece. A highlight of my life as a composer!
https://youtu.be/6HWDdBK_pT4?si=dFZH_o-8HPE8x1wZ