Corfu, Thursday, June 27th 2013, 20:30
Concert presented by the Alte Schmiede, Kunstverein Wien, Vienna
Die Musik und ihre Umgebung
(Music and its environment)
Weiping Lin piano
Volkmar Klien diffusion
Programme:
Volkmar Klien Nahen - Weiten
for piano, recorded sounds and electronics
duration: approx. 35'
Enrique Tomas Der Hirsch des Wahnsinns
fixed media, 6-channels version
duration: 30'
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Programme Notes:
Nahen - Weiten
by Volkmar Klien
for piano, recorded sounds and electronics
duration: approx. 35'
True to form each seemingly infinite space emerges in utmost proximity to the moment.
A sentence, spoken by the composer (in German): 'The truly genial aspects of this piece will be found not in transitional stringencies alone; they lie - first and foremost - in its own reflexivity.'
Perhaps that sentence originally referred to intentions - to the work - but it's semantic being was shaken loose of its sounding reality by radical actions of signal processing. What remains serves as the composition's most prominent ridge in time.
Late in the piece - this extended sounding territory - and similarly categorised as pitch-turned-object, a piano joins in. But the piano is not only a physically constructed, European history of music; it also serves as an extension to the human body and - without being interfaced to a mediated other - allows for direct expression in motion.
Der Hirsch des Wahnsinns
by Enrique Tomas
fixed media, 6-channels version, duration: 30'
1. Program notes before you listen to the work
Der Hirsch des Wahnsinns is the German translation one of the verses of "Al Infierno" ("To Hell") by the Spanish poet Leopoldo María Panero. This poem and some others by Rainer María Rilke, Rafael Alberti and John Milton were used at a soundwalk commissioned in 2010 for the gardens surrounding a famous statue of the Fallen Angel in Madrid. Updating some of those sound materials (in binaural format) with some new others (in ambisonic format) I propose you the listening of an acousmatic composition inspired by the Fallen Angels, understanding them as those who, though created as good beings, freely chose the wrong way.
2. Program notes while you listen to the work
You have probably realized that Der Hirsch des Wahnsinns is a composition made of smaller pieces and fragments of field recordings.
There is nothing to see in principle. Thus, leave your aural imagination work for you.
Using extreme ranges of amplitudes, frequencies and spatialisation, it is my intention to wide the limits of your listening perception. Be brave and don't filter them.
You have maybe chosen a specific place in the room to look at: feel comfortable there and avoid any impetus to analyse the musical structure of the work.
3. Program notes after you have listened to the work
Der Hirsch des Wahnsinns has a closed form because it is an interior trip. It didn't want to bring you anywhere but you have probably gone to many places alone. That was actually the work.
Alte Schmiede - Kunstverein Wien
Since its inception in 1969 the Alte Schmiede, located in Vienna's historic centre, has established itself as one of the most important venues for contemporary literature and music in Austria. Rather than simply providing a stage and an auditorium it strives to act as an active hub of communication between artists working in relevant fields. This has been achieved by the organisation of regular series of readings, concerts, workshops and symposia (in excess of 250 per year) as well as the publication of periodicals, books and compact discs.
Weiping Lin is an Associate Concertmaster (Stimmführerin 1.Violinen) of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna (RSO-Wien).
She is a well-respected violinist for contemporary music in Austria. Not only has Wei-Ping Lin performed numerous premieres, including several new works dedicated to her, she has premiered works by the composers Luna Alcalay, Christoph Herndler, Volkmar Klien, Gerd Kühr and Ming Wang. Her most recent CD 'Giacinto Scelsi -The violin works' [mode 256] has won her international acclaim.
As a chamber musician and soloist Wei-Ping Lin has performed numerous concerts in countries throughout Europe and Asia, playing with ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, die reihe, Ensemble 20.Jahrhundert and Zur Eisernen Zeit.
'Nahen-Weiten' is the first project for her to appear on stage as a pianist.
Wei-Ping Lin won several national violin competitions in her native country Taiwan. She moved to Austria at the age of fifteen to continue her music studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna with Josef Sivo, Dora Schwarzberg and Yair Kless.
In the following years Wei-Ping Lin received scholarships from the Alban Berg Foundation Vienna; the Aspen, and the Schleswig-Holstein, Music Festival; as well as the Sommerakademie Salzburg. These scholarships allowed her to attend master classes with violinists such as Zakhar Bron, Klara Flieder, Valery Klimov, Philippe Hirschhorn, Igor Oistrach, Igor Ozim, Gerhard Schulz, Abram Shtern and Edward Zienkowski. These studies lead to prizes at international violin competitions e.g. the Lipinski-Wieniawski in Poland or the Johannes Brahms in Austria.
Growing up in Vienna Volkmar Klien (*1971, Hollabrunn) spent his childhood engulfed in the city's rich musical life with all its glorious traditions and engrained rituals. Working from this background Volkmar Klien today strives to extend traditional practices of composing, producing and listening far beyond the established settings of concert music. He works in various areas of the audible and occasionally inaudible arts navigating the manifold links in-between the different modes of human perception, the spheres of presentation and the roles these play in the communal generation of meaning.
His works have been widely recognized, exhibited, performed and presented. he has received commissions from institutions truly varied in nature. For the Volksoper Wien (Vienna, Austria) he composed music to a full evening ballet, the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media & Performing Arts Center (EMPAC, Troy, NY) invited him to produce multi-channel electronic sound works and for Transitio MX (Mexico City) he produced a mixed media installation acoustically surveying landscapes. In his installation 'aural codes', funded by the Arts Council England, he turned the radio sphere over London into his exhibition space inviting residents to tune in and also interact.
Volkmar Klien's work has been awarded numerous prizes and awards, amongst these an Honorary Mention at the Prix Ars Electronica, the State Scholarship for Composition of the Republic of Austria, the Max Brand Prize for Electronic Music, the Scholarship of the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Prize for Composition.
Enrique Tomás [ultranoise] [Madrid, 1981] is a sound artist attracted to his computers to create immersive textures of sounds. Working with space as "the material", his concerts make us discover our capabilities for active listening in extreme range of amplitudes and frequencies. Without concessions to music his performances explore individual construction via aural imagination. The sonic space is not composed with certainty. Rather there is a sense of doubtful but intent while finding where we are at the same time as composing the landscape. His work (performances, installations, interventions, etc) was presented around Europe and America as solo artist or as part of collectives like Escoitar.org (sound heritage), Endphase (conceptual electroacoustic improvisation), Atmosfera::Sustrato_Ruido (Public Space sound art), Labor Orchestra (Laptop Orchestra Linz), etc.. in centers and festivals like STEIM, Ars Electronica, Sonar, Amsterdam Planetarium, Piksel, NOVARS, IEM...
http://ultranoise.es/