Edge Ensemble + Genevieve Murphy (bagpipes)
Violent Push of an Unpredictable Strategy
For Ephémère we will present an extended version of this work, with a more improvisatory approach to form. Notes on the original version from Genevieve:
“I started to learn bagpipes from the age of 8 and from this early age I was informed by my tutor that bagpipers would go into battle, to play alongside their army and to intimidate the opposition. The awareness of this has always stayed with me and has now become the inspiration behind the structure of this work. I imagine the bagpiper in slow motion, striking in the drones and beginning to play a piece that encourages his army but tries to push away the opposition. At the same time I think of the army who have encouraged this brave musician and that though everyone has their strategies they are still in an unpredictable situation. This piece is mainly based upon improvisation where the bagpipes encourage the ensemble to follow its tonalities and challenging dynamics. The group however, have their own strategies between them that work and harmonise outside of the bagpiper’s sound.”
The Edge Ensemble challenges the boundaries between notated and improvised music. Featuring singular performers from diverse musical worlds — contemporary, free jazz, rock, early music — they explore the new sonic territory where these traditions meet. Although the stylistic backgrounds of the performers may seem far apart, they are all rooted in performance traditions that have enough in common to allow for fascinating, unexpected points of confluence. The Edge Ensemble reflects and explores this situation with intensity, freedom, and precision.
Christof May (DE) – bass clarinet
James Hewitt (UK) – baroque violin
Vasilis Stefanopoulos (GR) – bass
Brendan Faegre (US) – drums, director
Anne La Berge
Utter
for flute, electronics and iPads
in collaboration with Isabelle Vigier, Marcel Wiercks
http://annelaberge.com/projects/utter/
Utter maps out the emotional and linguistic complexities of mother/child communication. The intimate, innovative setting features Anne La Berge together with 6 iPads that create a two-way guiding system where performer and media discover each other, exploring Utter’s rich sonic and visual fabric.
This project was funded by the Creative Industries Funds NL and the Performing Arts Fund NL.
Anne La Berge's passion for the extremes in both composed and improvised music has led her to the fringes of storytelling and sound art as her sources of musical inspiration. Her performances bring together the elements on which her reputation is based: a ferocious and far-reaching virtuosity, a penchant for microtonal textures and melodies, and her unique array of percussive flute effects, all combined with interactive electronic processing and text.
She performs regularly as soloist, with the ensemble MAZE and in the duo Shackle. She is a founding artist of Splendor Amsterdam, a collective of musicians, who have transformed an old bathhouse in Amsterdam into a cultural mecca, where she regularly produces and shares small scale concerts with international guests.
In 1999, together Steve Heather and Cor Fuhler, she founded Kraakgeluiden, a improvisation series based in Amsterdam, exploring combinations of acoustic instruments, electronic instruments and computers, and using real-time interactive performance systems. Many of its musical collaborations that have resulted have taken on a life beyond the Kraakgeluiden series, which ceased in 2006. La Berge’s own music has evolved in parallel, and the flute has become only one element in a sound world that includes computer samples, the use of spoken text and electronic processing.
She works regularly as an improvisation and live electronics coach worldwide in the context of residencies and private coaching.
She can be heard on the Largo, Artifact, Etcetera, Hat Art, Frog Peak, Einstein, X-OR, Unsounds, Canal Street, Rambo, esc.rec., Intackt and Data labels which include recordings with Ensemble Modern, United Noise Toys, Fonville/La Berge, Rasp/Hasp, Bievre/La Berge, Apricot My Lady, Big Zoom, Corkestra, La Berge/Williamson and MAZE.
Her music is published by Frog Peak Music (US) and Donemus (NL) and many of her Max patch based compositions are available as Apps from her privately. She is the Managing Director of the Volsap Foundation that produces innovative music projects.
BMB con. featuring Gregory Taylor
perform Sonate Nr. 1 by Victor Wentinck.
Sonate Nr. 1, (original title Phaenophonie) was written for tape, piano and percussion in 1969.
The original score was lost and Wentinck wrote another in 1983 for 1 to 5 players.
BMB con.’s version accentuates the sonic material of the tape part itself.
Victor Wentinck (1948) studied with Dick Raaijmakers and has had a long relationship with the
music scene of Den Haag. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Wentink