Evan Ziporyn: Ik zie een kruisbestuiving tussen Nederland en Amerika

13-11-2012 Den Haag – Het Korzo Theater brengt komend weekend voor de tweede keer het minifestival New York comes to The Hague, rond het Amerikaanse ensemble Bang on a Can. Tijdens de eerste editie in 2010 was dit avontuurlijke gezelschap ook al te gast en ik sprak hierover met klarinettist Evan Ziporyn, die er overigens zojuist uit is gestapt.

Zijn 100 30-second Pieces for Two Pianos zal in Korzo in première worden gebracht door het pianoduo X88, bestaande uit Saskia Lankhoorn en Vicky Chow, pianiste van Bang on a Can. Zij maken in dit festival hun debuut. Op het programma staat ook The Body is an Ear van de Australisch-Nederlandse Kate Moore, een arrangement voor twee piano’s van het gelijknamige stuk voor orgel uit 2011.

Mijn interview met Evan Ziporyn verscheen op Muziekvan.nu Helaas is de site uit de lucht gehaald.

#BangOnACan #EvanZiporyn #KateMoore #KorzoTheater #SaskiaLankhoorn #TheaDerks #VickyChow

Vanessa Lann: pianists ‘Vicky Chow and Saskia Lankhoorn can play anything’

Vanessa Lann (c) Teo Krijgsman

On Friday 1 December the piano duo X88 will present the world première of naked, I by Vanessa Lann at a recital in the Amsterdam Bimhuis. The American-Dutch composer wrote it especially for this adventurous piano duo, that performs complex contemporary music as if it were rock. It consists of the Canadian Vicky Chow, pianist in Bang on a Can All-Stars, and the Dutch Saskia Lankhoorn, who is a member of Ensemble Klang.

Like many foreigners, Vanessa Lann (New York, 1968) came to the Netherlands in the nineties, attracted by the vibrant musical life of the time. She is now firmly rooted here, thanks to successful works such as Inner Piece for solo piano (1994), Resurrecting Persephone for flute and orchestra (1999), Illuminating Aleph for cantor, choir and instrumental ensemble (2005), and her opera De Stilte van Saar (Saar’s Silence) in 2013.

Being a pianist herself, she has written many works for grand or toy piano. Four of these can be heard on the portrait cd Moonshadow Sunshadow that was released in 2015. Her work often has a theatrical aspect and Lann likes to fiddle with our expectations. This holds for her new piece for two pianos as well, of which the mere title may evoke confusion. Thus I assumed ‘I’ in naked, I meant the cipher 1, wondering how many pieces there were to follow in this new cycle.

None, Lann tells me. The title refers to the scientific term ‘naked eye’, which describes what the eye can perceive without microscope or telescope. ‘Since there are no electronics, the piece is about the raw/naked/honest expression of two people and two grand pianos. A piano is a big instrument, and the question is whether the two women are in control or not. In an almost ritualistic manner the piece confronts the performers with their capacities, not just as players, but also as individuals.’

Here we touch on a second layer: ‘The prounoun “I” refers to identity, who am I, who are you, how do we relate to each other? Naked, I explores the vulnerability of the players, as well as the power required of them in performance. It is inspired by extremes: when does soft playing become too soft, how long will a certain pattern hold our attention, what is scary, what is funny? In a sense both pianists try to determine who they are in relation to the piano as an instrument, and also to each other.’

Piano duo X88: Vicky Chow & Saskia Lankhoorn (c) Peter van Beek

This links naked, I strongly to De Stilte van Saar: ‘In my opera I address the theme of how we deal with our personal and social media identities. We create a two-dimensional, idealized image on Facebook, which we will eventually meet. Thus, in a way we become our Facebook identity. I composed it for Silbersee and Ensemble Klang, in which Saskia Lankhoorn played the toy piano.’

Lann is thrilled by the energy and virtuosity of Lankhoorn and Chow: ‘They can do absolutely ANYTHING, play ANYTHING, they’re quite fearless. But in this work they are “naked”, for they have to show themselves while playing the simplest of patterns.’

Halfway through they change pianos. ‘Like in my piece Moonshadow Sunshadow for two violins, you then hear the same material as before, played on the same instrument, but by a different performer. In what way does it sound different the second time: does the character of the pianist play a role in how we listen to the raw material? This question intrigues me: what you see is what you get.’

In their recital the duo will also perform premières by Nik Bärtsch, Tristan Perich and Pete Harden. The concert will be repeated in the Red Sofa series of the Rotterdam Doelen on Saturday 2, and in Korzo Theatre The Hague, as part of the Festival Dag in de Branding on Sunday 3 December.

#NakedI #PianoDuoX88 #SaskiaLanhoorn #VanessaLann #VickyChow

Gaudeamus nominee Stefan Maier: ‘I embrace the unpredictability of sound’

For its 69th edition Gaudeamus Music Week again nominated five composers under 30 for its coveted Award. Some 300 scores were submitted by 95 composers from 29 different countries. The jury (Gerhard Stäbler, Yannis Kyriakides and Clara Ianotta) selected Nicholas Morrish (1989) from Great Britain; Scott Rubin (1989) and Kelley Sheehan (1989) from the United States, and Remy Siu (1990) and Stefan Maier (1990) from Canada. Remarkably all five nominees have an Anglo-Saxon background. Were there no aspiring composers from other parts of the world, one wonders.

Stefan Maier

Anyway, the festival offers a diverse range of music, music installations and music theatre, ranging from the multimedia project Zamenhof: Breaking the Codes by the Polish artist in residence Jerzy Bielski through the performative sound installation Senses Working Overtime to the world première of Bird, that the Finnish composer Sebastian Hilli wrote for Asko|Schönberg – fulfilling the commission attached to the Gaudeamus Award 2018.

Many of today’s composers move freely between genres, styles and disciplines, not seldom blurring the boundaries between composer and performer. This holds definitely for Stefan Maier, whose compositions, installations, and performances ‘examine emergent and historical sound technologies’, to use his own words. He likes to ‘highlight material instability and unruliness’, to ‘explore the flows of sonic matter through sound systems, instruments, software, and bodies’. He seeks to ‘uncover alternate modes of authorship and listening possible within specific technologically-mediated situations’.

Maier applied for the Gaudeamus Award 2019 with Bellows, Territories III and Thicket; the first two will actually be performed. ‘I guess I’ve always followed the Gaudeamus competition since I got into composition’, he says. ‘It’s always exposed me to exciting new voices, so I thought I’d see if I could do it myself. I hope and expect to hear a lot of great music and to meet interesting people. I look forward to meeting my co-nominees, getting acquainted with their music, but also to seeing and performing alongside friends.’

How do you see the relationship between performer/composer?

‘That’s a complex question for  me — and it has changed significantly over the past years. I have always been interested in the intrinsic dynamism of the performance of classical music — the fact that interpretation, ensemble dynamics, and even the acoustic signatures of the performance space transform and enliven works.’

‘So I don’t really believe in a straight through-line from composer to interpreter: it’s always a complex trajectory, muddied by instruments, technology, individual agency, material resistance, it’s totally non-linear. This has always been central in my work, especially with the use of extremely chaotic sounds/hyper-specific extended-techniques. I’m drawn towards contingency within the inner-life of materials — materials that have certain “infinity” properties, such that the sounds are always changing and are unpredictable for performers.’

‘The performer is encouraged to engage this unpredictability and, indeed, revel in it. My attention to this has opened more and more over the years — especially since working with feedback systems, as e.g. in Bellows and in my live-electronics work.’

‘With Bellows, basically the entire structure is determined by acoustic feedback in the performance space. Its acoustic signature literally determines most parameters of the work. For example, there’s a listening score for the ensemble so that when the feedback generates a certain tone, then the ensemble imitates it, etcetera. It’s super open and contingent, way more so than in my more traditional ensemble writing. And that’s precisely what I find to be most interesting about it!’

‘With works like Bellows, the traditional relationship between composer and performer is destabilized. — Yes, I’m making a ton of decisions to facilitate ensemble dynamics and form and other composerly concerns, so I’m still in the picture — but it’s also about highlighting the “material intelligence” of the sounds taking on the role of the composer in a way.’

‘Sometimes that results in stuff that I’m not happy with, but now that my practice has evolved to include a studio/electronic music/improvisation practice, I feel that if I want a super specific thing, I can just work on it in my studio. Live performance, then, becomes something else for me – something far more indeterminate!’

In the festival Maier will perform with pianist Vicky Chow in a new work called Rare Earth. ‘I’ll be playing modular synthesizer. I will also be playing organ/electronics for Bellows, alongside my collaborator Ragnhild May, who co-authored that work.’

I interviewed the five nominees on 4 September in TivoliVredenburg.

#GaudeamusMusicAward #RagnhildMay #SebastianHilli #StefanMaier #VickyChow