16 February 2015
Newsdesk
May will feature a marathon weekend curated by Bryce Dessner, composer, guitarist and member of rock band The National.
This year’s weekend will have a focus on an emerging American generation, featuring evocative new music and multi-arts performances inspired by the landscape of the USA. 20th century classics and sparkling new works sit side by side, drawing fascinating connections between recent generations of American artists. Events will spread across the Barbican Hall, Milton Court Concert Hall and St Giles, Cripplegate with highlights of the marathon weekend including:
World premiere of Wave Movements – a new orchestral work by Bryce Dessner and Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry, performed by Barbican Associate Ensemble Britten Sinfonia and featuring visuals by celebrated Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto
European premiere of Round-Up – a musical and cinematic portrait of the classic American tradition of ‘rodeo’, conceived by Sufjan Stevens in collaboration with cinematographers Aaron and Alex Craig, performed by percussion/piano quartet Yarn/Wire
UK premieres of two new pieces of music by Bryce Dessner written for Chicago-based ensemble eighth blackbird and New York City percussion quartet So Percussion
European premiere of Black Mountain Songs – a multimedia song cycle inspired by North Carolina’s Black Mountain College featuring music by Bryce Dessner, Richard Reed Parry, Caroline Shaw, Tim Hecker and others, presented by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
Performances of seminal minimalist pieces including Terry Riley’s In C and Steve Reich’s Drumming
Solo sets including performances by sound artist Tim Hecker; organist James McVinnie and musician and composer Caroline Shaw
Also part of the weekend will be performances of music by Philip Glass, Michael Gordon; John Luther Adams; composers from Sleeping Giant collective, including Timo Andres; and others to be announced.
Saturday 9 May 2015
Mountains and Waves: Session One
Music by Sufjan Stevens and Bryce Dessner performed by Yarn/Wire and eighth blackbird
Saturday 9 May, Milton Court Concert Hall, 2pm
Tickets £15 – 20
Mountains and Waves kicks off on Saturday afternoon at Milton Court Concert Hall, featuring Round-Up, a new work by singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens. Round-Up is a musical and cinematic portrait of a classic American tradition in which slow-motion documentary of rodeo events is accompanied by Stevens’ instrumental and lyrical live score, performed here by New York-based percussion/piano quartet Yarn/Wire. Conceived as a companion piece to Stevens’ multi-media work The BQE about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, Round-Up is a meditative study of man, animal, and the conquest of nature in the West, using footage shot at the 2013 Pendleton Round-Up in Oregon by American cinematographers, brothers Aaron and Alex Craig, who edited down some 60 hours of footage into a 70min film. Round-Up was commissioned by Brooklyn Academy of Music and received its premiere in January 2015.
The second part of the evening sees Chicago-based, three-time Grammy-winning sextet eighth blackbird perform the UK premiere of Murder Ballades - new music written for the ensemble by Barbican marathon weekend curator Bryce Dessner. The work is based on American folk songs and murder ballads from the 1930s and 1940s and received its world premiere in April 2013 and has subsequently been used as the score for New York choreographer Justin Peck’s piece of the same name. Murder Ballads is commissioned by eighth blackbird and Lunapark.
eighth blackbird – Michael J. Maccaferri (clarinets), Tim Munro (flutes), Yvonne Lam (violin & viola), Matthew Duvall (percussion), Lisa Kaplan (piano) and Nicholas Photinos (cello) – will also perform three pieces by young American composers’collective Sleeping Giant, including a new work by pianist and composer Timo Andres.
Mountains and Waves: Session Two
James McVinnie
Saturday 9 May, St Giles, Cripplegate, 5pm
Tickets £5 (on sale from 19 February 2015)
Marathon weekend audiences can enjoy the intimate surroundings of St Giles, Cripplegate in-between Milton Court and Barbican Hall performances, and listen to organist James McVinnie who will play pieces by Nico Muhly and Philip Glass. James McVinnie is a member of Bedroom Community, the Icelandic record label and close-knit collective comprising nine like-minded, yet diverse musicians from different corners of the globe. Cycles, his debut release of music written for him by Nico Muhly was released on this label in 2013 to widespread critical acclaim. McVinnie also appears as part of the Barbican’s contemporary music season at the Union Chapel on 20 February, featuring a performance of Nico Muhly’s Twitchy Organs.
Mountains and Waves: Session Three
Black Mountain Songs
Saturday 9 May, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm
Tickets £20 – 25
The Saturday evening concert sees the European premiere performance of Black Mountain Songs – a multimedia song cycle performed by Brooklyn Youth Chorus alongside an assembled ensemble including Bryce Dessner, Richard Reed Parry, Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw and Ning Yu.
Poetry influenced by the work of Black Mountain professor, Charles Olson is put to music composed by Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw, Richard Reed Parry, Tim Hecker, John King and Aleksandra Vrebalov and the performance will also include projections, dance and spoken word.
Black Mountain Songs is inspired by and celebrating the spirit of collaboration in the mid-20th century at North Carolina’s Black Mountain College - artistic playground of innovators such as John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Robert Rauschenberg.
The project was commissioned by Brooklyn Academy of Music and Brooklyn Youth Chorus and received its world premiere in November 2014. Curator Bryce Dessner and co-curator Richard Reed Parry assembled a diverse group of collaborators to work with the Youth Chorus, renewing that collective thread and rekindling Black Mountain’s utopian spirit, whilst celebrating a new generation of artists.
In the second part of the evening, an ‘All Star Jam’ sees pianist Lisa Kaplan (eighth blackbird) lead an ensemble of performers from across the Mountains and Waves weekend including Bryce Dessner, Richard Reed Parry, Nico Muhly and more, playing In C by Terry Riley, in an early 80th birthday tribute to the composer.
Barbican Club Stage, post Barbican Hall concert
The first day of the marathon weekend culminates on the Barbican Club Stage, where audiences can chill out to the mesmerising sounds and meditational rhythms of minimalist composer and Bang on a Can co-founder Michael Gordon’s Timber performed by an extended So Percussion line-up. The work is written for six percussionists playing wooden, amplified 2x4s or so-called ‘simantras’ (instruments devised by composer Iannis Xenakis), cut into different sizes to create different pitches. Timber brings the physicality, endurance and technique of percussion performance to a new level, shaping the music in both polyrhythmic and dynamic waves of textures.
Sunday 10 May 2015
Mountains and Waves: Session Four
with So Percussion and Tim Hecker
Sunday 10 May, Milton Court Concert Hall, 2pm
Tickets: £15 – 20
For over a decade, So Percussion has redefined the modern percussion ensemble as a flexible, omnivorous entity, pushing its voice to the forefront of American musical culture. Following on from their performance of Michael Gordon’s Timber the previous night, So Percussion are back on Sunday, presenting the UK premiere of Bryce Dessner’s Music for Wood and Strings at Milton Court. The percussionists will play on specially invented string percussion instruments, including amplified hammer dulcimer-like chord sticks alongside woodblocks, snares and bass drums.
The headliner for Session Four is musician and sound artist Tim Hecker, presenting an ambient drone-sound-based set. Since 1996, the Canadian has produced a range of audio works for Kranky, Alien8, Mille Plateaux, Room40, Force Inc, Staalplaat, and Fat Cat and has worked with artists including Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never. Hecker’s works have been described as “structured ambient”, “tectonic color plates” and “cathedral electronic music”. He has focused on exploring the intersection of noise, dissonance and melody, fostering an approach to songcraft which is both physical and emotive. His work has also included commissions for contemporary dance, sound-art installations, as well as various writings.
Mountains and Waves: Session Five
Caroline Shaw
Sunday 10 May, St Giles, Cripplegate, 5pm
Tickets £5 (on sale from 19 February 2015)
Marathon weekend audiences will again have the opportunity to enjoy the intimate surroundings of St Giles, Crippelgate in-between Milton Court and Barbican Hall concerts. On Sunday young Pulitzer prize winning composer Caroline Shaw leads a performance of her song cycle for string quartet By And By – featuring settings of traditional folk songs – plus more.
Mountains and Waves: Session Six
with Britten Sinfonia conducted by Clark Rundell
Sunday 10 May, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm
Tickets: £20 – 25
Richard Reed Parry and Bryce Dessner’s new collaborative work Wave Movements for string orchestra and film takes as inspiration the different wave cycles of the world's oceans and will receive its world premiere performance at the Barbican this May. Composers of diverse backgrounds with a history in experimental art music, Parry and Dessner also are members of the popular rock bands Arcade Fire and The National respectively. The music, composed directly to the actual rhythms of waves, will be performed by Barbican Associate Ensemble Britten Sinfonia and conductor Clark Rundell in synch to a film made by photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto who created an iconic series of seascape photos in the 1980's. The piece embodies nature and likewise uses atypical musical structure; it is vast, rhythmic and lulling but also rhythmically uneven, hypnotic and immersive - constantly surprising the listener with an organically shifting, restless feeling throughout. Commissioned by Barbican Centre in collaboration with MET Museum Presents for the NY Philharmonic Contact Ensemble, Edinburgh International Festival, Cork Opera House, Sydney Festival and St. Denis Festival. Hiroshi Sugimoto’s work was shown as part of the Barbican Art Gallery’s recent Constructing Worlds: Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age exhibition and can be seen in the current exhibition Magnificent Obsessions: The Artist as Collector.
The second part of the evening features Steve Reich’s early minimalist masterpiece Drumming, performed by So Percussion and special guests, an ensemble who have made the piece their own in recent years.
Barbican Club Stage, post Barbican Hall concert
The Mountains and Waves marathon weekend comes to a worthy finale with a performance of John Luther Adams’ Four Thousand Holes for keys and percussion, performed by members of So Percussion on the Barbican Club Stage. Four Thousand Holes in the composer’s own words is described as “strong musical currents falling and rising, again and again, as points and lines are juxtaposed with heavy, hammered chords. The mix of the "live" and electronic sounds blurs the distinction between musical figure and ground. As in much of my recent music, I conceive of the entire piece as a single complex sonority that evolves slowly. As we settle into the sound, we begin to hear long lines, counterpoint, and maybe even the occasional trace of a tune.”
