published on
Performance
Friday, October 20th, 2017
ISSUE Project Room
22 Boerum Place, Brooklyn
Friday, October 20th, ISSUE presents a public performance celebrating the work of pioneering French composer Éliane Radigue (in absentia), presented as a part of The Austrian Cultural Forum’s Moving Sounds Festival. Following her honoring at ISSUE’s 2017 Gala, the evening spans her acoustic and electronic compositions and features the world premiere of OCCAM RIVER XVI, performed by composer and clarinetist Carol Robinson and harpist Rhodri Davies, as well as a performance of Radigue’s 2013 piece OCCAM IX by Laetitia Sonami.
The evening also showcases Mila's Song in the Rain from The Songs of Milarepa, a tribute to the Tibetan saint and poet from the eleventh century. Released in 1983 and compiled in 2001 by Mimi Johnson’s Lovely Music, the song cycle is arguably considered the masterpiece of Radigue’s early electronic works. The recording of Mila's Song in the Rain is presented as a focused listening environment, demonstrating the signature organic mysticism of Radigue’s Arp synthesizer work alongside Lama Kunga Rinpoche and Robert Ashley’s respective Tibetan and English readings.
After completing her ground-breaking Naldjorlak trio for two basset horns and cello, Éliane Radigue began a new musical project called OCCAM OCEAN. She initiated the cycle with a solo harp piece written for Rhodri Davies in 2011. Little by little, solos for a wide range of instruments were created, including three for electronic instruments, and then combined into various chamber groupings. The combinations are seemingly infinite, a compositional coincidence that was extremely motivating to Radigue. Her first trio, OCCAM DELTA II, was written for bass clarinet, viola and harp, and premiered by Carol Robinson, Julia Eckhardt and Davies in 2012. It, and other pieces for these performers, will soon be released by shiiin on a double CD.
OCCAM IX, the ninth composition in the OCCAM OCEAN composition cycle, was created with Laetitia Sonami on electronics with her new instrument, the Spring Spyre. Sonami originally studied with Radigue in France in 1976. While her music took on a very different expression through her design of unique controllers and live performance, they both remained very close. In 2011, Sonami requested Eliane to create a piece for her new instrument. Their meetings took place during the winter 2012 in France, after which Radigue gave her permission to premiere the piece in the Fall 2013. Three audio pick-ups on the Spring Spyre are analyzed and trained through neural networks to create subtle real time modulations of digital synthesis. The work mode is based on an individual “image” illustrated and evoked within each solo -- where each musician is guided by his or her personal “image.” This provides the essential sound, letting descriptive words and evocations establish a system of communication as the piece is being elaborated. This intuitive-instinctive process guides the performer to the very essence of the composition. Sonami describes the process as akin to oral transmission of ancient traditional music.