58/58 Project
Above the Philips Pavilion; photo by Wouterhagens. CC BY-SA 3.0
58/58 Project: SPACE proposed as theme -Son et lumière extravanganza
SPACE is the starting point and potential catalyst for the UK-Dutch 58/58 project; a collaboration embracing Manchester's and Sonology's existing compositional diversity and research experimentation. Potential methodologies and ideas are widely open to composers and performers involved.
EVENTS
17th October 2015:
Kees Tazelaar presents a concert wth his music and Varese's Poème électronique at the MANTIS FESTIVAL
Programme:
Le poème électronique (1957–1958) Edgard Varèse (**)
Chatoyance 2 (2013–2014) Kees Tazelaar
Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft
auf dem Lande (2014) Kees Tazelaar (music) Marianne Dekker (images)
Berglandschap (2015) Kees Tazelaar
EQUALE (2013) Richard Barrett and Kees Tazelaar
About Poème électronique reconstruction:
Le poème électronique (1957–1958) by Edgard Varèse (8 minutes)
5-channel reconstruction of the music: Kees Tazelaar
In January of 1956, Louis Kalff, Philips’ director of artistic affairs, contacted Le Corbusier in Paris about the company’s plans for a Philips Pavilion at the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958. At that point, there was not yet any indication of the extremely avant-garde character that the project would eventually assume. Kalff wrote: “The interior of Le Corbusier’s Chapel at Ronchamp apparently has elements that would also be applicable in the Philips Pavilion. We want to present a synthesis of light and sound in a completely new and modern form. The walls must offer a continually changing panorama of light and color set to the rhythm of modern stereo music, such that at the end of the six- minute presentation visitors will have witnessed a more or less abstract testimonial that symbolically represents the genealogy of Philips and its products.” Once Le Corbusier became involved in the project, however, it would develop in a totally different direction. Le Corbusier, who originally had only been asked to take care of the interior of the Pavilion, in fact took over the entire artistic supervision from Kalff and even imposed all sorts of conditions of his own. He refused to collaborate with other artists and architects, assuming responsibility for the entire Pavilion himself, including its interior with the interplay of light and color and its sculptural form. For the music, however, he made an exception: the commission absolutely had to go to the New York-based composer Edgard Varèse. The music was reproduced on a three-track tape, the tracks of which could be heard coming from different clusters of loudspeakers in opposition to one another or resounding in flowing movements along specific routes. The total loudspeaker system comprised 325 speakers, supplemented by speakers for the bass tones. The automatic movements of the sound were registered on a 15-track control tape, which contained a total of 180 command channels.
Above: Le Corbusier’s Chapel at Ronchamp
EVENT:
June/July/September 2016 - Performances of S.LAAG, for Bass Clarinet and game-audio
ICLI 2016 Conference, Brighton, UK // xCoAx 2016 Conference, Bergamo // ICMC 2016 Conference, The Hague. The Netherlands
s.laag is an interactive work by Ricardo Climent, especially composed for Dutch Bass Clarinettist Marij Van Gorkom, as part of the Dutch-UK.network project started in 2015. The piece explores the concept of "Extended Reality", taking place in the intersections of the Real, Virtual and the Modular Augmentation of a musical instrument. The environment is the Expo 58 in Brussels, where Pavilions from different nations become the stage for the bass clarinet. The player needs to dis-embody and re-embody the musical instrument which transforms itself into a new self (mobile, parts, human-like) unfolding new degrees of musical expression.
VISIT TO DEN HAAG:
Hordijk System Induction by Rob Hordijk
Climent, Hordijk and Scott at Hull Port, arriving from Rotterdam to UK with the synthesizer from The Hague
Rob Hordijk - 5 hour Induction to Climent and Scott at Hordijk's workshop Studio in the Hague
Richard Scott testing the new Hordijk System in Den Haag
Hordijk introducing the instrument to PhD Danny Saul and Sam Weaver (sines-squares) in the Drama Studio, Manchester University.