In Ghost Flower Ritual, Sophie Søs Meyer collaborates with visual artist Cecilia Fionas to create an immersive, cross-disciplinary experience. Set to premiere at Copenhagen Contemporary, performed by Athelas Sinfonietta, the piece is an exploration of transformation, ritual, and the interplay between sound and visual art. Rooted in both historical inspiration and contemporary artistic practice, Meyer’s approach invites audiences into a world where music, movement, and sculpture merge.
Performance at Copenhagen Contemporary, 2025.
Photo: Farzad Soleimani.
A Ritual of Sound and Sculpture
The initial spark for Ghost Flower Ritual came from a 17th-century scientific experiment. Meyer recalls reading about the natural philosopher and scientist Sir Kenelm Digby who burned a rose, then placed a glass over its ashes, claiming that light could resurrect the flower. “It was such a beautiful and simple metaphor for resurrection,” Meyer reflects. “From today’s perspective, we would obviously question its scientific validity, but I was fascinated by its ritualistic nature.”
This idea of transformation and timeliness became the foundation for the work’s development. Over the course of a year, Meyer and Fionas engaged in an ongoing dialogue about the space they sought to create. “For me, music builds the space, while for Cecilia, it’s sculpture, costumes, and other visual elements,” Meyer explains. Together, they explored the relationship between the animate and inanimate, the human and the non-human—between a statue’s stillness and a costume in motion.
Performance at Copenhagen Contemporary, 2025.
Photo: Farzad Soleimani.
The Sound of Falling Pollen Grains
Central to the piece is a large sculptural installation: a giant lily horn suspended from the ceiling. This visual anchor also influences the music, particularly through the imagining of its pollen which Meyer envisioned as sound-producing elements. “I had this idea of a sonic embodiment of pollen grains falling to the ground that could initiate the music,” she says. This led to an exploration of musical techniques that evoke fragility and destabilisation. “The double bass is playing scordatura. For me scordatura can be used to decontextualize, and create instability, as all resonances of the instrument changes when detuning the instrument. The Double Bass player is throughout the piece repeating a rhythmic pattern with the scordatura tuning, a pattern that became the initiator of the sound of destabilisation in the ensemble.” Meyer describes and continues: “The first movement, Nacre I, means ‘mother-of-pearl’ and unfolds like an expanding ocean, with the strings opening up a vast sonic world. Meanwhile, the flute plays with a special technique blending harmonic balayage and harmonic clusters creating a sonic image of flickering lights from the surface.”
Meyer’s compositional approach is often characterized by a focus on mimetic references—translating visual or conceptual ideas into sound. The collaboration with Fionas marks the first time she has worked with an actual visual component, allowing each sonic gesture to be deeply intertwined with the performance’s visual world. However, this way of thinking about music through a visual lens, or drawing inspiration from visual elements, is not new to Sophie Søs Meyer.
An altered sense of time
Meyer’s compositions frequently draw from the natural world, often finding inspiration in biological phenomena. She mentions a recent sinfonietta piece, Diphylleia Grayi, inspired by an Asian flower that turns transparent when it rains. “That idea of transformation—of something changing its expression in response to its surroundings—became the entire basis of the piece,” she notes. For Meyer, such metaphors express vulnerability and interconnectedness, qualities that shape both the structure and texture of her music.
Sophie Søs Meyer describes the pacing of Ghost Flower Ritual as deliberately stretched, built on slow repetitions that subtly evolve over time. “There’s an altered sense of time in the piece. Some sections feel almost disembodied, where pulse disappears completely, while others are driven by natural rhythms.”
Performance at Copenhagen Contemporary, 2025.
Photo: Farzad Soleimani.
Time and place
Ghost Flower Ritual will premiere at Copenhagen Contemporary on 10 April 2025 and be performed live on another six occasions. The performance runs about 45 minutes.
It’s free to join the performance, once you have paid the entrance fee to Copenhagen Contemporary, but remember to get your ticket in advance here.
Performance dates and times:
Thursday 10 April, 18:00 (invited guests only)
Saturday 12 April, 14:00 and 16:00.
Thursday 17 April, 18:00 and 20:00.
Saturday 19 April, 14:00 and 16:00