{"id":1777,"date":"2024-06-18T12:43:21","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T10:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/?p=1777"},"modified":"2024-06-19T12:39:24","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T10:39:24","slug":"naked-empty-silence-in-hamburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/?p=1777","title":{"rendered":"naked empty silence in Hannover"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"page\" title=\"Page 5\">\n<div class=\"layoutArea\">\n<div class=\"column\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Trailer to Zeitlupe concert\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-IUw1j9FQak?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>My new piece for cello (Martha Bijlma), <a href=\"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/?p=1375\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">electronics<\/a>, and Jean-Francois Laporte&#8217;s self-made compressed-air-driven instrument the <a href=\"https:\/\/totemcontemporain.com\/fr\/instruments\/bol\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bol<\/a> was premiered on November 19th 2023 at the <em>Rampe<\/em> in Hannover, Germany. This was part of the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/hgnm.de\/archiv\/zeitlupen\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Zeitlupe<\/a><\/em> series initiated by the <em>Hannoversche Gesellschaft f\u00fcr Neue Musik. <\/em>In these concerts, a new work is presented twice, with other works perhaps, and with a discussion led by a moderator, in this case the WDR3 journalist, author, and music critic Raoul M\u00f6rchen. The discussion follows the first performance of the work and precedes a second performance:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"In-concert discussion\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/leitGoDu3Pw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"naked empty silence\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HrkhAEztGJk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>programme note<\/h2>\n<p>Samuel Beckett\u2019s <em>mirlitonnades<\/em> are small poems in French, described by the author as \u201cgloomy French doggerel\u201d. I first came across them in Harper\u2019s magazine (US) in 2006. Several contemporary writers had translated a single seven-word poem into English, illustrating perfectly not only the difficulty of poetry translation in general but the rich abundance of meaning that can be mined from a few well-chosen words: \u201cre\u0302ve \/ sans fin \/ ni tre\u0302ve \/ a\u0300 rien\u201d (\u201cdream \/ without cease \/ or treaty \/ of peace\u201d according to Roger O\u2019Keefe).<\/p>\n<p>I found more of these translated in a blog post by Eric Hoffman. I was struck by one in particular: \u201cnaked empty silence \/ will never \/ be \/ empty silence\u201d. There is an obvious musical link here to Cage and what we might call the impossibility of silence, but <em>naked empty silence<\/em> is no <em>silent piece<\/em>. There is however a concentration on extremes of dynamic, for the most part extremely quiet but significantly amplified and thus inviting the listener to hear the (almost) silence, the delicate playing techniques through the sonic microscope that the microphone can be.<\/p>\n<p>But what really attracted me to the musical potential of these short translated poems was the connection to the impossibility of an exact but always <em>obligatory<\/em> translation of a music score\u2019s symbols into sonic structures\u2014or even the desirability of an attempt at such, whatever that may entail.<\/p>\n<p>Jean-Franc\u0327ois\u2019 instruments, even when screaming, are delicate, unpredictable beasts. Writing for them necessitates navigating the unknown, to a certain extent, along with everything that can happen within it. A complex live electronics system increases the unpredictability and the need to think on your feet and react quickly during the performance. Choosing unstable sound production techniques on the cello seemed apt in this context, as well as the presentation and re-presentation of structures created with fragile sonorities on both instruments and elaborated with electronics. This double coupling forms a certain translation and re-translation, here by the same musicians rather than by different authors. It offers both players and listeners the opportunity to hear the same short musical utterance several times, extracting different significance upon each apprehension.<\/p>\n<p><em>naked empty silence<\/em> was written on the invitation of Gordon Williamson for Jean-Franc\u0327ois Laporte and Martha Bijlsma for the <em>zeitlupe<\/em> 2023 concert series in Hannover, and for Jean-Franc\u0327ois with E\u0301milie Girard-Charest in Montre\u0301al.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My new piece for cello (Martha Bijlma), electronics, and Jean-Francois Laporte&#8217;s self-made compressed-air-driven instrument the Bol was premiered on November 19th 2023 at the Rampe in Hannover, Germany. This was part of the Zeitlupe series initiated by the Hannoversche Gesellschaft f\u00fcr Neue Musik. In these concerts, a new work is presented twice, with other works [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,137,108],"tags":[3,4,147,84],"class_list":["post-1777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-composition-documentation","category-performances","category-slippery-chicken","tag-algorithms","tag-common-lisp","tag-germany","tag-maxmsp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1777"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1786,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1777\/revisions\/1786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}