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 &quo
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

The Art of String Quartets by Brian Ferneyhough

By -
Image
When an artist sets paint to canvas, there are brush strokes used for different effects. Sometimes those strokes are subtle, imperceptible; they produce works of art like the Mona Lisa . Other times the very obvious nature of the stroke is the art, as in works by Van Gogh. With some composers of music, the notes on the page are their craft. How those notes translate into an aural experience is what defines some composers as great artists. Brian Ferneyhough has a masterful command of the techniques of putting notes on the page. These techniques are sometimes so subtle, even though written in black and white, they escape detection. Some of what he attempts with his music is just that, to escape detection, to bury the framework, diverting the ear away from the structure, so only the music is heard . The subtlety is so fine it is almost imperceptible. Even though he studied at several institutions, he is considered self-taught, studying scores from Boule
Read more