FIGMENT: solo Cello & Electronics

By -

Anchoring a fall season of genre-bending performances, electrifying collaborations and a groundbreaking artistic vision realized in his home city of Montreal, FIGMENT, the latest evolution of Matt Haimovitz’s signature solo set will be released by Oxingale Records on September 29. The sequel to his trail-blazing 50-State solo cello tour and recording, ANTHEM, released in 2003, FIGMENT salutes contemporary music icon and centenarian Elliott Carter with his two Figments for solo cello, also bringing together a wide range of important new music for cello and electronics by leading and emerging North American composers.

FIGMENT features several premiere recordings including Serge Provost’s cutting-edge Les Vertiges de S. for electronically-processed solo cello, Luna Pearl Woolf’s Sarabande for solo cello, up and coming composer Du Yun’s San, a deconstruction of haunting ancient Chinese fragments, and a prelude to Carter’s first Figment for solo cello by beats and sample artist Socalled. Also encorporating the Middle Eastern microtones of Gilles Tremblay’s Cèdres en Voile: Thrène pour le Liban, Ana Sokolovic’s Balkan folk-influenced Vez, and music by Steven Stucky, FIGMENT embraces the diversity of our collective experience and celebrates the innovation of North American composers who seek a renewed lyricism, epitomizing a new era of hope and creativity in the face of challenging times.

FIGMENT will tour more than a dozen cities this fall including New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, Brooklyn’s Galapagos Arts Space, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center (Fresh Ink Series), Montreal’s new eXcentris, Toronto’s Music Gallery, Minneapolis’ Dakota Club, Chicago’s Schubas, Washington DC area’s Iota Club and many more. (See below for a complete list of dates and venues.) The tour will feature a real time interactive video component designed by Professor Sha Xin Wei of Concodia University’s Topological Media Lab in Montreal. For selected performances Haimovitz is joined by songstress Du Yun on vocals, laptop and keyboard, improvising segues between composed works to create a seamless musical arc and to perform their original song, Miranda.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In ...
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

Teaching Composition – What are we trying to achieve

By -
In the process of learning composition I have spent time with a number of instructors who have encouraged me to write twelve-tone, pitch-class, electro-acoustic and other forms of experimental techniques. No matter how much I might understand and appreciate the work of other composers in the genres, these are not forms of music I resonate with. They are simply not forms of music I listen to and I struggle with the idea of writing them. However, in a Master Class by Libby Larsen she made the comment, “Learn them all, because all forms of music have something to offer.” This I very much agree. There are elements of each of the above mentioned forms (and others) that I do resonate with. Berg’s Violin Concerto is a beautiful twelve-tone work, although it is possible to look at numerous sections of the music with a “tonal” analysis. Another composer friend, Gary Bachlund commented that using these techniques can narrow the choices for how to compose a piece of work. If you look at ...
Read more