12 AUG 2021, 7pm - Kirche St. Stephan Leuk

NETWORKING PENDULUM / PLAYING WITH MORTON

 

 

PROGRAMM

Networking Pendulum / Playing with Morton

Simone Conforti
Networking Pendulum, 2021
ein EASTN-DC-Projekt
UA

UMS 'n JIP/Morton Feldman
Playing with Morton, 2021
für Stimme(n), Blockflöte (F-Bass) und Zuspielband
UA

PROGRAMMNOTIZEN

Networking Pendulum

Networking Pendulum is a reinterpretation of the famous work Pendulum Music by Steve Reich and is based on the reinterpretation of the concept of the sound generator that the microphone-speaker paradigm represents. In an attempt to read the sonic action generated by the performance through the gaze of the new millennium, Networking Pendulum, as the title itself points out, takes shape by extending the properties of the microphone-loudspeaker electroacoustic chain by also inserting a computer into the mechanism, which performs: both an analysis function of the local electroacoustic chain and a data transmission function within the network to which all the performers are connected. The idea is linked in various ways to our daily life, on the one hand the fact that we are always connected and therefore our data are constantly shared, on the other hand the fact that every data that we receive conditions and influences the interpretative model with which we access information. Starting from these concepts, in Networking Pendulum, each electroacoustic system is transformed into an agent that is able to model the other connected agents according to the data that its system generates, and is in turn transformed by constant interconnection with the other agents. The agents, influencing each other, generate a sort of infinite feedback of data that create a musical texture that is formed by the complex transfer of information between them in order to create a constantly changing and iridescent sound result. (Simone Conforti)

Pendulum Music (For Microphones, Amplifiers Speakers and Performers) is the name of a work by Steve Reich, involving suspended microphones and speakers, creating phasing feedback tones. The piece was composed in August 1968 and revised in May 1973, and is an example of process music. Reich came up with the concept while working at the University of Colorado. He was swinging a live microphone in the style of the cowboy's lasso, and noting the produced feedback, he composed for an "orchestra" of microphones. Three or more microphones are suspended above the speakers by means of a cable and stand. The microphones are pulled back, switched on, and released over the speaker, and gravity causes them to swing back and forth as pendulums. As the microphone nears the speaker, a feedback tone is created. Different lengths of cable will swing at different speeds, creating an overlapping series of feedback squeals. The music created is thus the result of the process of the swinging microphones. According to Reich, "The piece is ended sometime shortly after all mikes have come to rest and are feeding back a continuous tone by performers pulling the power cords of the amplifiers". He also added: "If it's done right, it's kind of funny". Reich's 1974 book Writings About Music contains the hand-written (1973 revision) description of how to perform the piece. Writings About Music contains a photo of a performance at the Whitney Museum of American Art on May 27, 1969. The performers there were Richard Serra, James Tenney, Bruce Nauman and Michael Snow.

Networking Pendulum, è una rivisitazione del celebre brano Pendulum Music di Steve Reich e si basa sulla reinterpretazione del concetto di generatore sonoro che il paradigma microfono-altoparlante rappresenta. Nel tentativo di leggere l'azione sonica generata dalla performance attraverso lo sguardo del nuovo millennio, Networking Pendulum, come già titolo stesso evidenzia, prende forma estendendo le proprietà della catena elettroacustica microfono-altoparlante inserendo nel meccanismo anche un computer, che svolge: sia funzione di analisi della locale catena elettroacustica, che funzione di trasmissione di dati all'interno di una rete a cui tutti i performers sono connessi. L'idea si lega in vari modi al nostro quotidiano, da un lato il fatto che siamo sempre connessi e che quindi i nostri dati sono in costante condivisione, dall'altro il fatto che ogni dato che riceviamo condiziona ed influenza il modello interpretativo con il quale accediamo alle informazioni. Partendo da questi concetti, in Networking Pendulum, ogni sistema elettroacustico si trasforma in un agente che è in grado di modellare gli altri agenti connessi in funzione dei dati che il suo sistema genera, ed è a sua volta trasformato dall interconnessione costante con gli altri agenti. Gli agenti, influenzandosi vicendevolmente, generano una sorta di feedback infinito di dati che creano una texture musicale che si forma dal complesso trasferimento d'informazioni tra di essi al fine di creare un risultato sonoro costantemente mutevole e cangiante. (Simone Conforti)

Steve Reich über Pendulum Music: https://www.furious.com/perfect/ohm/reich.html (2000)

Playing with Morton

Playing with Morton arrangiert Morton Feldmans emblematisches Opus "Three Voices" für die Besetzung von UMS ´n JIP. Feldman konzipierte das Werk für drei Sopran-Sängerinnen oder einen Sopran mit Tonband: UMS ´n JIP wagen einen Schritt weiter mit einer (und wohl der ersten) Transposition für Männerstimme, Bassblockflöte und wahlweise vokales/intrumentales Tonband. Die Stimme dialogisiert nun nicht mehr mit den beiden Lautsprechern, welche für Feldmans verstorbene Freunde Phil Guston und Frank O'Hara stehen; in ihrer Version rücken UMS `n JIP Feldman in ihre Mitte und spielen mit ihm - "Playing with Morton" eben.

„Ich bin kein Uhrmacher. Ich bin an Zeit in ihrem unstrukturierten Zustand interessiert.“
(Morton Feldman)

"Three Voices durchleuchtet, wohin sich Klänge entwickeln, welche Zustände ihre Verbindung mit der Zeit ergeben. Zeit – Wenige wussten sie so zu nutzen wie Feldman: In knapp 75 Minuten entpuppen sich aus winzigen gesungenen Gesten in "Three Voices" ganze elf Wörter. Feldman gab den Klängen selbst Zeit, ihre Bedeutung zu entwickeln, Charakter zu zeigen." (Thomas Meyer)

"I'm not a watchmaker. I'm interested in time in its unstructured state." (Morton Feldman). Playing with Morton arranges Morton Feldman's emblematic composition "Three Voices" for the instrumentation of UMS 'n JIP. "Time - Few knew how to use it like Feldman: in just under 75 minutes, tiny sung gestures in "Three Voices" turn into a whole eleven words. Feldman gave the sounds themselves time to develop their meaning, to show character. "Three Voices" illuminates where sounds evolve, what states their connection with time yields." (T. Meyer) Feldman originally conceived the work for three soprano singers or one soprano with tape: UMS 'n JIP venture a step further with a (and arguably the first) transposition for male voice, bass recorder and tape. The voice no longer dialogues with the two speakers, which stand for Feldman's deceased friends Phil Guston and Frank O'Hara; in their version UMS 'n JIP move Feldman into their midst and play with him - "Playing with Morton". Since 2007, UMS 'n JIP have performed over 300 commissioned works and 1200 concerts in over 40 countries, performing individual works over 100 times, almost unprecedented for new music worldwide, true to their credo: smallsized, refined, on par with the best of their time, sustainable. Parallel to their work as performers, they also pursue a career as composers, winning more than 20 international awards as such. With their program pool "Avantgarde Arranged" they rearrange reference works by contemporary composers, reflecting the repertoire they have generated over the years. UMS 'n JIP's repertoire consists almost exclusively of commissioned works. Since their instrumentation is unique, they cannot draw on existing historical repertoire or repertoire commissioned or created in another context, as a string quartet can. With the arrangements of the selected pieces, they integrate works that are relevant to them into their work and create an exciting alternative view to the abundance of these very works that were created in their own commission.

WIND (to Morton Feldman by Frank O'Hara)

MITWIRKENDE

Playing with Morton
UMS 'n JIP, rec/voc/elec

BIOGRAPHIEN

Morton Feldman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton_Feldman

Frank O'Hara.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_O'Hara 

Phil Guston.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Guston

Joan La Barbara.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_La_Barbara

Steve Reich.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Reich

Simone Conforti. Composer, computer music designer, sound designer and software developer. Born in Winterthur, he is graduated in Flute and Electronic Music and teaches in the pedagogy department at IRCAM in Paris and works as computer music designer at CIMM Venice. Specialised in interactive and multimedia arts, his work passes also through an intense activity of music oriented technology design, in this field he has developed many algorithms which ranges from sound spatialisation and space virtualisation to sound masking and to generative music. Co-founder and CTO of MUSICO, formerly co-founded MusicFit and MUSST, has worked for Architettura Sonora, and as researcher for the Basel university, the MARTLab research center in Florence, the HEM Geneva and the HEMU in Lausanne. He has been professor in Electroacoustic at the Conservatoires of Florence and Cuneo.

UMS 'n JIP (Ulrike Mayer-Spohn und Javier Hagen) ist ein Schweizer Duo für Neue Musik. Mit über 1200 Auftritten seit 2007 gehört UMS 'n JIP zu den weltweit aktivsten Ensembles für Neue Musik. Charakteristisch sind ihnen Multi- und Interdisziplinarität sowie ein international verzweigtes Netzwerk von Komponisten, Regisseuren, bildenden Künstlern, Autoren, Programmierern und Forschern, mit welchen sie regelmäßig zusammenarbeiten. Sie treten konzertant, szenisch, performativ, installativ und multimedial auf und arbeiten ästhetisch an der Schnittstelle zwischen europäischer und außereuropäischer Musik und zwischen musikalischer Avantgarde und Pop. Ulrike Mayer-Spohn (UMS) und Javier Hagen (JIP) haben beide klassische Musik (Dorothea Winter und Mike Svoboda resp. Roland Hermann und Nicolai Gedda), Komposition (Erik Oña, Wolfgang Rihm, Heiner Goebbels) sowie Audiodesign (Studio für Elektronische Musik Basel) in Holland (Den Haag), Deutschland (Karlsruhe), Italien (Ferrara) und der Schweiz (Basel, Zürich) studiert. Solistisch wie als Duo sind sie in den meisten Ländern Europas, den USA, in Australien, Russland und Fernost aufgetreten, wo sie insgesamt über 300 Werke in Zusammenarbeit mit Komponisten wie Péter Eötvös, Aribert Reimann, Mauricio Kagel, Huang Ruo, Guo Wenjing, Stefano Gervasoni, Vladimir Gorlinsky (ur-)aufgeführt und für internationale Rundfunk- und Fernsehanstalten aufgezeichnet haben. Ihre eigenen Kompositionen, darunter Ensemble-, Orchester-, Chor- und szenische Werke mit und ohne Elektronik, gewannen Preise an den Weimarer Frühjahrstagen für zeitgenössische Musik (2017), am Internationalen Musikfestival in Savona (2017), am London Ear Festival (2016), am Musikfestival Bern (2011), bei Culturescapes (2010), in Treviso (2011), am Music Village Mount Pelion (2011) und wurden von den Ensembles l'Arsenale, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Uroboros Ensemble, Ensemble Proton Bern, Basler Madrigalisten, Putni, dissonArt Ensemble, Taller Sonoro, Ensemble Nuove Musiche, Ensemble Via Nova, Ensemble Phoenix, Männerstimmen Basel, Amar Quartett unter der Leitung von Beat Furrer, Tsung Yeh, Mark Foster, Jürg Henneberger, Oliver Rudin, Titus Engel und Filippo Perocco gespielt. Ferner ist JIP der aktuelle Präsident der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (ISCM Switzerland), Intendant des Festivals für Neue Musik Forum Wallis, waltet im akademischen Rat der Akademie für Zeitgenössische Oper des Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires und nimmt 2009-18 Einsitz in die UNESCO-ICH-Kommission (Intangible Cultural Heritage) des Kantons Wallis in der Schweiz. http://umsnjip.ch/

EASTN-DC, European Art-Science-Technology Network for Digital Creativity. The European Art - Science - Technology Network (AST) emerged from several European institutions involved in research, technology development, creation and education in the field of technologies applied to artistic creation. This network is coordinated by ACROE and supported by the Culture Program of the European Union. Since its launch in January 2014, this network has allowed the reception in residence of 40 European artists or collectives, and the creation of many unique pieces. Concept and objectives. The European Digital Science and Technology Network for Digital Creativity (EASTN-DC) is a follow-up to EASTN and is a forerunner of the next digital revolution. After the first phase, known as the "calculating machine", with the intensive development of computing power and its democratization, after the second phase, known as the "communicating machine", with the development of the Internet and large-scale uses, the third phase is in gestation and will be just as revolutionary as the two previous ones. In this phase, "machines will address all the sensory and active means of humans", a phase forecast by interactive and multimodal technologies. This phase, in turn, will allow for sensitive creation and communication. The EASTN-DC project puts forward the idea that it will be possible for the citizen not only to follow this evolution but to anticipate, guide and concentrate it. The main objective is the active acculturation of society, reaching out to a wider public. The second objective, closely linked to the first, is to build capacity - training and education. EASTN-DC brings together 17 partners, including 14 from 10 European countries and 3 from countries outside Europe: