Ellen Fullman presents the Long String Instrument with Konrad Sprenger

As part of the 2025 edition of the Festival d’Automne, the Bourse de Commerce presents the world premiere of Kontaktmikrofone 1, a work by American composer Ellen Fullman and musician-composer Konrad Sprenger, performed by them in the museum’s Rotunda.

For years, Ellen Fullman has stretched long strings across spaces, walked among them, rubbed them with her rosin-coated fingers –like a manual bow – feeling every vibration and releasing delicate sounds under their sovereign wave. She conceived her first Long String Instrument in New York in 1983, on the occasion of a group exhibition. Since then, she has approached her instrument with meticulous care – selecting materials, determining the length and tension of the strings in proportion to her height, exploring the relationships between tones, and refining the resonator that amplifies them for us. At the Bourse de Commerce, she stretches the Long String Instrument across either side of the concrete cylinder designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, situated at the center of the Rotunda’s twenty-eight-meter diameter.

With Kontaktmikrofone 1, the sound of each string of Ellen Fullman’s instrument has been isolated for the first time, thanks to the installation of contact microphones directly on the tuning capos. Through this setup, Konrad Sprenger explains: “My sound processing system allows me to thoroughly examine every facet of the sound produced by the excitation of the string—as if it were being observed through a scientific magnifying glass.” This method offers precise control over numerous acoustic parameters: sound speed and duration, attack time, intensity, pitch, as well as spatialization of the signal via a multichannel diffusion system.

Konrad Sprenger is the pseudonym of Joerg Hiller, a composer, artist, and instrument maker based in Berlin. His work explores the connections between performance, installation, composition, and research. He develops complex harmonic and rhythmic structures from acoustic instruments that he designs himself, combined with physical synthesis techniques. He recently presented live performances using a computer-controlled electric guitar and co-founded, with Philip Sollman, the Modular Organ System– an installation integrating traditional and experimental organ pipes.

Ellen Fullman, Konrad Sprenger, Kontaktmikrofone 1, for Long String Instrument and electronics (2025). World premiere.

Ellen Fullman: Long String Instrument
Konrad Sprenger: live processing
Presented in co-production by the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection and the Festival d’Automne in Paris.