Blogs / The Arts Revue
Stellar
| Jan 22
Live Electronic Spaces featuring works by Hans Tutschku and Jacopo Baboni-Schilingi
Groundswell Concert Series
Winnipeg Art Gallery
Thursday, January 13, 2009
For those wondering what happened to the electronic music of the 60s – that music composed by Milton Babbitt, Charles Wuorinen and Morton Subotnik among others – which seemed to have either submerged or disappeared completely, Groundswell has now provided an answer – electronic is no longer being created in studios but now appears live on stage together with actual musicians.
The two composers whose works were featured this evening are carrying on the European tradition.
Hans Tutschku, who was born in Weimar, Germany in 1966, participated in several concert cycles of Karlheinz Stockhausen who passed away on December 5, 2007.and taught electroacoustic composition at IRCAM in Paris from 19976-2001.
Jacopo Baboni-Schilingl, who was born in Milan in 1971, is also associated with IRCAM having studied there in 1995/95. In the 1990s, Luciano Berio requested that he created the Department of Education at the Centro Tempo Reale in Florence and directed it from 1999-2004.
The evening consisted of three pieces, an intermission and two after with one each of Tutschku’s and Baboni-Schilingi‘s in both halves. The additional piece was by Orjan Sandred, who was born in Uppsala, Sweden in 1964, attended and guest lectured at IRCAM where he met both of the other composers on the program, has been a professor of composition at the U of M since 2005 and was responsible for curating this program.
A better performer could not have been selected to begin the program. Caitlin Broms-Jacobs is a talented young oboist. She came out on stage already blowing the oboe announcing the beginning of Tutschku’s piece Shore for oboe and live electronics. Statuesque, she wore knee high silver boots and an outfit that, although seemingly subdued, captured the essence of the evening with its hints of metallic gleam. Several speakers were spread throughout the periphery of the room. Her jagged motifs were sampled in real time and repeated in various speakers.
The highlight of the first part was Ben Reimer’s performance on wood and temple blocks in Baboni-Schilingi’s Decode II for percussion and live electronics. The pace demanded of Reimer was incredible. He advised that he wasn’t certain that he could maintain that speed when he first began rehearsing the piece but, by repeating it every day, he flew past his own expectations to create a solidly powerful performance. Fortunately, his temple blocks waited until the piece was nearly completed before one of the blocks decided it had had enough and bailed out descending to the floor in a crash.
The piece that was the least interesting was Sandred’s Cracks and Corrosion II for guitar and live electronics. Richard Tyborowski handled what was given to him with supreme skill. The problem was that all that was handed him were isolated arpeggios and some rasquedo techniques which, manipulated by the electronics, sounded like plywood rubbed against a wall. The guitar, and particularly the guitar in Tyborowski’s hands, is capable of so much more.
Following intermission, the small but appreciative crowd was treated to another Tutschku composition Das Bleieme Klavier for piano and live electronics. Tutschku was present thoughout the evening manipulating the electronics but, in this case, came out to play the grand. Even more than in his first composition of the evening, his indebtedness to Stockhausan was evident. His jagged melodic structures blended well with the industrial sound of the electronics. Not content to merely play the keyboard, he stood up at times to manipulate and deaden the internal strings of the piano. This performance was outstanding.
The final piece, Baboni-Schilingi’s Concubia Nocte for soprano and live electronics, was stellar. Rosemarie van der Hooft is a mezzo soprano trained in early music. The piece began with her whispering. The dynamic was not much above sotto voce for the entire piece which she handled with aplomb drawing upon Gregorian chant and early Baroque vocal techniques having little, if any, vibrato. She was firmly in control and her flaming red hair didn’t hurt that perception any.
Baboni-Schilingi was to have been present at the performance as well but due to illness remained on his own side of the Atlantic. Van der Hooft advised that he was able to have a presence at one of the rehearsals at Eva Claire Hall thanks to Skype which was only fitting for a performance that relied so much on technology.
For the most part, this was a strong concert well earning four stars out of five.
- John Herbert Cunningham