Esel chroenet is No. 6 from the cycle New Carmina - a project initiated by the Vocalforum Graz and their director Franz M. Herzog. Twelve internationally renowned European composers accepted the invitation and have each composed a setting of one of the chosen texts of the Carmina Burana. In this way, there arose a complex, well-knit, full-length choral work – an impressive symbiosis between the witty text inserts, the medieval texts and the completely innovative, original ways in which the choral music, with its diversity of contemporary musical languages, treated these.
The text set by Denovaire, Esel chroenet (Crown the ass), tells about life being not as carefree as it seems and not so simple either. A series of aphorisms demonstrate why much is very different than it seems.