MISCELLANEOUS PRESS REVIEWS FOR CONCERTS:
(more too follow....)
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Big Noise (Lab Fly Dreams)
Pascal Wyse
Tuesday November 25, 2003
The Guardian
Friday was a musical hard-hat night. Icebreaker has been called "pile-driving" and "smashing up the furniture", while this tour, with Orkest de Volharding and visual artists, has its eye on "demolishing the concert format".
Collaboration seems to license claims of ground-breaking activity. The night had four premieres, but it was hard to see what, in concept, was so radical. The piece that really felt as if the artists got under each other's skin was Yannis Kyriakides's Lab Fly Dreams (visuals by HC Gilje). Inspired by the dreams of a fruit fly, it was a blizzard of music. We saw a twitching, microscopic view into the eye of the fly, with echoes of surveillance cameras, computers and jumbo jets. The music and visuals helped and reflected each other...
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Cutting Edge: Nosferatu
Warehouse, London
Tom Service
Saturday September 21, 2002
The Guardian
The British Music Information Centre's Cutting Edge series is a unique initiative. Focusing on the newest of new music, the 17 concerts take place every week throughout the autumn, and showcase a huge range of repertoire. With over 80 premieres of works, mostly by young British composers, the series provides a rare and welcome opportunity to experiment with programming and presentation.
The concerts have a relaxed and inviting setting, and the opening programme, given by four players from the ensemble Nosferatu, was a quirky and eclectic curtain raiser for the whole series. Christopher Fox's KK for saxophone and percussion was the first world premiere of the programme; a fast mix of volatile riffs and intense, high-register melodies. Yannis Kyriakides's Chaoids was an essay in rhythmic drive, scored for saxophone, percussion, violin, and electronics. Each player inhabited a separate world of tempo and texture, and each fought ferociously to maintain their independence in the midst of these competing layers of music. The electronics provided a grindingly dissonant backdrop, and the piece ended with the players yielding to the sonic onslaught around them....
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KYRIAKIDES CREATES WORLDS OF SOUNDS
“Eindhoven Dagblad” by René van Peer
A concert with music by Yannis Kyriakides; Ayelet harpaz and Stephie Buttrich - voice,
Marion von Tilzer - piano.
Plaza Futura, Eindhoven, wednesday, 29th of October.
“There are concerts when from the very first sound you know you are in good hands.The concert with music of the composer Yannis Kyriakides....was a perfect example. The concert began with the angry buzz of an insect trapped inside a jar. The smile that spreads on our face with the sudden recognition is replaced by curiosity when the sharp sound of the insect is taken over by the voice of the singer Ayelet Harpaz. A seamless interchange of this kind between artificial and human sounds is rare.
The concert of Kyriakides came in good timing, earlier in the year this ex-pupil of Louis Andriessen won the prestigious Gaudeamus prize for his composition SPI, which was heard in the second half of the concert. The combination of conventional with unconventional sounds sources is one of the main features of his work which was performed in the concert. Next to the piano and voice he combines insect sounds , irregular drum machine sounds, piercing sine tones, and recordings of coded messages from the shortwave radio .These astonishing sounds together with the balanced way in which he combines them with the play of the musicians reveals a very distinct and personal soundworld.
“... The piece “SPI - a conspiracy cantata” was the central work of the evening. It’s basic material are number series transmitted on short wave radio, probably for espionage use, codes which nobody as yet has been able to crack. Through these recordings, the hypnotizing voice of Stephie Buttrich and Ayelet Harpaz and wide separate notes of piano and electronics Kyriakides feeds the audience with a message that is both intruiging and disturbing. Although the singers’ voices were recognizable, the meaning of their words was unintelligible. Mystery and sounds were made captive, but not unveiled.”
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