Resorts & Ruins
“Resorts & Ruins” is released on UNSOUNDS. A set of three recent sound works: Varosha, The One Hundred Words and Covertures. All the pieces use source material that highlight specific vocal traditions, namely Turkish pop music, Cypriot epic song, and Baroque opera, but they also all make extensive use of other forms of speech and vocal acts. This CD comes with a postcard series created by Isabelle Vigier: “The Golden Seaside” based on images of Varosha, the resort of Famagusta.
Can be ordered through UNSOUNDS. Unsounds 33U.
2013 New Piece
2013 began with some intense work on a new piece for Ensemble Klang, 'God Good Luck'. This will be premiered at the KORZO, Den Haag on the 16th February. The piece is based on surviving questions submitted to the ancient oracle at Dodona in north-west Greece, which gave answers through the priestess and priests interpretation of the rustling of the leaves of an oak tree. The queries, mostly of a personal nature, would range from whether one should act to change a particular situation: marriage, job opportunities, health, travel, money, to questions about suspected crimes, trustworthiness of siblings and even slave ownership. In the piece, the questions are both encoded in the music and presented on a text grid forming geometric shapes. The piece is scored for piano, metal percussion, electric bass, three table (junk) guitars, live electronics and video projection.
End of the year
The year ended with a festive couple days at the Bimhuis for The EX's 33 1/3 anniversary concerts, where amongst many other wonderful sets, Andy Moor and I played six songs from our Rebetika project. This was preceded by some frantic composing in December finishing two new small piece: Wartime, a song for voice, string quartet and video for Lore Lixenberg and the Brodsky Quartet based on a poem by Turkish Cypriot poet Mehmet Yashin, and a solo viola piece, (without the use of any technology whatsoever for a change) simply called Music for Viola. That rounded of a year which turned out to be very productive, with 14 new pieces written, and in which I had the pleasure of collaborating with some amazing groups, musicians and artists: Zwerm, Calefax, Jurjen Hempel & JON, Saskia Lankhoorn, Larissa Groeneveld, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Marko Ciciliani, Slagwerk Den Haag, David Wheeler & IOU Theatre, MAZE (Anne La Berge, Gareth Davis, Wiek Hijmans, Reinier van Houdt, Dario Calderone) and as always the usual suspects at Unsounds: Andy Moor and Isabelle Vigier.
Double Music Project
Premiere of 8'66 (or everything that is irrelevant), a collaborative piece written with Marko Ciciliani for Slagwerk Den Haag's innovative John Cage tribute concert. Inspired by Cage and Lou Harrison's Double Music (which was beautifully rendered by the ensemble), 6 couples were asked to contribute a joint composition. These included works by Luiz Yudo & Tom Johnson, Oscar Bettison & Pete Hardy, Louis Andriessen & Martijn Padding, Peter Adriaansz & Maarten Altena, Michael Gordon & Julia Wolfe, Huba de Graaff & Jan van de Putte, and Marko and myself.
Arnoud Nordegraaf made some lovely video interviews with composer couples which were screened before each of their pieces. Was very happy how the performers handled the minimal elements of the performance: triggering the iPads and modulating the speaker sound with their mouths and hands and moving around the space.
MAZE in the studio
Fantastic couple of days in the studio with a new group 'Maze' (Anne La Berge, Gareth Davis, Wiek Hijmans, Reinier van Houdt, Dario Calderone and myself) recording and extended version of Alvin Lucier's Memory Space for a forthcoming CD, and Christian Marclay's Shuffle. The group will officially launch next year with Marclay concerts in various festivals.
Narratives 1: Dreams
First DVD release of music text films series that will eventually comprise about 15 pieces. “Dreams” brings together 3 pieces recorded by Ensemble MAE and ASKO : dreams of the blind, the arrest and subliminal: The Lucretian Picnic.
dreams of the blind was awarded the Willem Pijper Prijs by the Johan Wagenaar Stichting. The prize was given on December 10th 2011 at the Korzo theatre in Den Haag, as part of the Dag in de Branding.
Limited edition release of 250. Unsounds 29U.
Airfields
Mazagran releases CD of airfields (trojan light) from the live performance by musikFabrik made in Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam in Feb 2011. This is a 12 part suite for ensemble and electronics.
This work was nominated for the Toonzetters Prize 2012.
The Ear of the Voice of the Eye
Commissioned by November Music, Bob Gilmore's book on my work is published by teleXpress.
Free download ➡ The Ear Of The Voice Of The Eye [pdf].