Old windmills in Zaandam

I’m in a small town called Zaandam, just outside of Amsterdam, in residence and rehearsing a piece with a wonderful ensemble/organization called vocaallab nederlands. The piece is ‘position, influence’ for soprano and electronics. It was first performed by Donatienne Michel-Dansac and now Jennifer Van Der Hart is performing, and doing a phenomenal job.

The center for Vocaallab is a wonderful house and adjoining church. Vocalists and composers pass through and are constantly rehearsing new projects, as well as socializing and eating together.

The performance will be part of the Gaudeamus Music Week, on Tuesday. If anyone is around, do let me know. More info and documentation to follow.

To update quickly, this past summer I’ve done my first installation in Grass Valley, as part of the 6th Poto Festival. It involved two walls of hanging metal sheets (turned into speakers with transducers) and light bulbs, suspended by wires, with a fabric roof. Video projection on one side done by Marcia Scott, Heather Gordon and Michael Newton. There was an industrial fan creating turbulence inside the corridor, causing everything to shake a bit, and the public was able to walk behind the sheets and bend them, changing their timbre. It was a wonderful experience. Soon as I gather materials, I’ll post some documentation- though I plan on doing it again soon in the bay area.

Also, I wrote a new piece for recorder, accordion and percussion, soon to be performed at Berkeley. Performers will be Tosiya Suzuki, Stefan Hussong, and Kuniko Kato.

In addition, I’m living in a new warehouse space in Emeryville. I hope to soon have information about concerts and projects there.

After many hours of soldering, metal sheet assembly, amplifier 
research, etc, I’m happy to say that tonight is the premiere of my 
first live electronic performance for the Cunningham piece at 
Zellerbach Playhouse, as part of the Berkeley Dance Project. There’s 
three racks of ’speaking’ sheets of metals

Below here is a photo of two of the racks when I was working on them at CNMAT:

Speaking Metals

The performances are Fridays, April 17th and 24th, Saturdays April 18th and 25th at 8pm. Sundays April 19th and 26th at 2pm.

Location: Zellerbach Playhouse, Berkeley

More info can be found here

 

 

logo, world music days/ISCM

Vilnius, Lithuania is pulling off an amazing feat, and its still going on, until November 8th! This is the first international festival in the baltics, and it is truly a large event. These ‘international events’ are very problematic, perplexing, and purposefully-so. It is extremely difficult to compare such different pieces programmed right next to each other. The best one can hope for is that this is useful for others. Personally I felt that the ‘procession’ concert that I was a part of was extremely unique and exciting, but the festival deserves better credit for the other concerts, including the symphony orchestra, and bringing in guest ensembles such as Ens. Modern, Conjunto Iberico, and Percussion Strasbourg

Once again, enormous thanks to three wonderful musicians that I had the pleasure of working with, despite for just one day! Soprano/Composer Rita Maciliunaite, Trumpetist Laurynas Lape, and flutist Andrius Radziukynas. With the given circumstances (a very late night performance!) they did an incredible job. 

Also thanks to the US embassy for making the trip possible. And thanks to the music academy for having me as their guest. I had a wonderful time speaking with the composers there. Thanks for such enthusiasm. I hope that I might have a chance to come back to lithuania, there is a great energy there and many great musicians.

cover image of debord's 'society of the spectacle'

October 1st and 2nd finally arrived. The performances at the Pompidou Center, despite some technical misfortunes, went very well. Baritone Lionel Peintre, Cellist Severine Ballon, and Percussionist Daniel Ciampolini did a wonderful job with this new shorter version of the piece. The piece uses texts of isidore isou and Guy Debord. It is a rather personal piece, dealing with historical and contemporary issues in a rather obscure way. From my program notes:

Why do we create art and what do we expect it to do? This is the question posed in ‘68′. In the beginning we witness the creative act: a poet, writing and speaking out the earliest fragments of his poems; discovering through experiment his voice, both physically and figuratively. It alludes to Isidore Isou, a romanian-born poet who, in 1942, at the age of 17, moved to Paris and wrote a manifesto on ‘lettrisme’, sparking a movement. With each creative moment, our poet’s own energy and imagination are embodied in the actions of the percussion, violoncelle, and the mise-en-scene.

But what of society? What of government? Our poet realizes that his artistic actions have no way of changing society unless he confronts social and economic issues, at the expense of artistic vision. Our poet decides that his art must not simply discover and create and describe, it must enact.
Guy Debord’s Societe du Spectacle, a work whose message is as relevant today as it was leading up to Mai 68, is central to this decision. Our poet accosts us, the audience, urging us to see the spectacle for what it is, and how it is not real society.
Throughout the piece we see the works of Jacques Villegle, constantly putting the mirror to the moment- and in so doing, they make us aware of our present moment. 

In addition to these comments, the big issue that I am contemplating is the fact that so many artistic opportunities are facilitated by institutions. So many of us young composers are constantly working within the walls of institutions. How can I reconcile the difference between my surroundings with my influences such as Isou and Debord who are adamantly at odds with this? My resolve was to criticize the institution from within. This line of Debord for me was particularly effective for my protagonist/poet:

(excerpt verse 189)

As all the art of the past comes to be recognized and appreciated historically, and is retrospectively reclassified as phases of a single “world art,” it is incorporated into a global disorder that can itself be seen as a sort of baroque structure at a higher level, a structure that absorbs baroque art itself along with all its possible revivals. For the first time in history the arts of all ages and civilizations can be known and accepted together, and the fact that it has become possible to collect and recollect all these art-historical memories marks the end of the world of art. In this age of museums in which artistic communication is no longer possible, all the previous expressions of art can be accepted equally, because whatever particular communication problems they may have had are eclipsed by all the present-day obstacles to communication in general.

I’ll get the copy of the piece (video and audio). Not sure about putting it online, as its long- but maybe excerpts..

Here are two links of excerpts of the dance piece “Umwelt” by choreographer Maguy Marin. She’s the artistic dir at Centre Choregraphique nat’l de Rillieux-la-pape in France. The piece, though highly attractive and stylized, has such an incredible economy of elements- objects, movement, situations, sound, etc that she achieves the general form of what i’ll call here for lack of a better term, “uncomfortable hypnotism”. It’s clear she put a great amount of time into the timing of return, combination, and variation of her various objects for the ensemble- plastic silver reflective crowns, pieces of meat, whistles, flashlights, buckets of rocks, bunny hats, etc. There was clearly a notion of repetition varied between consecutive and very long-term. There was weak material, and material meant to break up ideas of continuity for stronger material. In addition there were many different changes of clothing for each time they’d appear, going with or against the objects. All in all there was a large-scale progression of debris with some objects being left downstage. The full-time noise and large fans were a very clear situation, and they barely changed throughout- although there was some curious stuff w/the music, it was well-done in my opinion.

With such detail given to the smaller elements, and a refusal to move beyond the well-plotted scope of the piece, the real question was how was the energy to be sustained for an hour? With so many hyper-stylized elements, it could help get you only so far…and I’d say that the variations in movement created brief interpersonal relationships (always through repetition of dance phrase). This, combined with overall faster movement and energy, allowed us to achieve a form a lot more interesting than some gradual increase of energy and ensemble leading to a climactic moment-rather, it was all done very sensitively despite the overall intense situation of the piece.

In any case, here are the links- I saw it at the Joyce Theatre June 19th. The audience was disappointing… 

In my last two years in paris I’ve had the experience of working within an institution, IRCAM

This was an experience very new to me, yet in some ways familiar terrain. Composing for me isn’t an investigation just in sound, it consists of pondering material, whatever it may be. The possibility of technology or ‘electronics’ permits new situations, but this idea of material can’t be ignored just to find something ‘new’, or ‘innovative’. Experimentation is necessary no matter what material it is being explored. 

In general my work has taken hold of theatre, working with space and performers in a way that deals with musical movement and theatrical movement as related and overlapping elements. This direction is moving me towards different work. Of enormous influence have been political issues and social issues of late 40’s-late 60’s and beyond. Individuals such as Isidore Isou, Maurice LeMaitre, Jacques Villegle, Guy Debord, and Henry Chopin are of particular importance. Movements such as situationisme, lettrisme, and poesie sonore have had enormous influence in addition to historical elements in the late sixties in Paris. 

All my Thanks:

I’ve had the privilege to work with and learn from many inspiring people, especially Mikhail Malt, Emmanuel Jourdan, Jean Lochard, three very gifted pedagogues. Researchers such as Arshia Cont, Emmanuel Flety, Diemo Schwarz, Greg Beller, Nicolas Rasamimanana, Frederic Bevilacqua, and Norbert Schnell. Yan Maresz, as a composer and as a teacher has helped me in countless ways. Pedagogy director Cyril Beros has supported me and given me enormous space in finding the result that I desire- such enthusiasm and encouragement is very rare. Through him I’ve had the enormous privilege to work with Thierry Bordereau, an incredible theatre director. It has been a joy to find the links between contemporary music and theatre with him.

Many thanks to Sophie Duplaix at the pompidou center. Her interest in my work and that of Jacques Villegle, among others, is greatly appreciated.

The production team here has allowed me to realize one project (position, influence) as well as a second piece for October (68). Many thanks go to Pascale Bondu, Joachim Olaya and Maxime Le Saux.

Most importantly are my classmates, each composers of great gift, always inspiring and supportive: Marco Suarez Cifuentes, David Hudry, Mandy Fang, Inaki Estrada Torio, Piet Johan Meyer, Roque Rivas, Matteo Francescini, and Yann Robin. My second year I had the joy to get to know yet even more composers who arrived to study here. 

And yet the most important are the musicians, without whom nothing is possible. I’ve had great fortune to work with Donatienne Michel-Dansac, Severine Ballon, Daniel Ciampolini, and Lionel Peintre. They have taught me so much.

Finally I must thank those who have made these last two years possible, those at Berkeley, California. I will thank them in person: Edmund Campion, David Wessel, David Milnes, Cindy Cox, and the rest of the gang.

last couple of months: putting together the piece ‘68′. There is always more work to do, and it’ll continue while I’m back in the bay area, starting in July.

last couple of years: living here in Paris. I’ve met some really important people and have had some great experiences. I’ll be juggling Paris and the bay area for some time I’m sure.

next couple of weeks: I’ll see Berlin for the first time, and then I’ll be in new jersey. Then I arrive to the bay area the 28th of June. Looking forward to getting back!

To catch up everyone who might be interested, I returned 2 weeks ago from the Spark festival in Minneapolis. It was a very interesting experience, putting on a piece produced with all the resources of IRCAM all by myself. Of course “all by myself” wasn’t possible and I owe thanks to a long list of very amazing people who helped it happen. All in all I must work harder though, as the result was not good enough.

Just had rehearsals for the new piece, “68″. Its going to work, and very well. I have the best ensemble I can imagine for the piece, which combines theatre with music in a very seamless way. Theres too much to say about, so I’ll wait until its done. There is much work left to do.

The coming months will consist of big changes. I’ll return to new jersey in june, and then back to berkeley in july. I return to my phD and teaching in august at UC-Berkeley. The department will be different and so will I.

really, i don’t get all my info from nytimes, but these two are great:

here

and here

what do you think of this article? yes, its also bernard holland

- maybe its not relating to my concerns exactly, but one of the things most important to me right now is having a very strong visual connection to the music- meaning that i try to avoid performers adding any pizazz or showmanship- unless its a result of their understanding of the material- i’ve seen too many new music pieces where virtuoso players just make an overly physical performance of a piece because they didn’t put the time in to understand the piece…thoughts?