One of the things I have been trying to do lately in this thread is to pull attention to some living composers, and to the unusual things they have been working on; whether it is John Adams who brought prerecorded materials into his powerful work commemorating the Sept. 11 disaster, to William Bolcom and his great work Songs of Innocence and Experience which touches upon nearly every genre of American music.
Classical music is alive and well, and is currently filled with experimentation.
I will not be able to go to the concert described in the following article, as I must work tonight. But it sounds interesting, and it sounds like the composer combines music with film for one of his works.
www.mlive.com/entertainment/aanews/inde ... xml&coll=2Quote:
Forget 'the usual' for UMS concert Andriessen does things differently
Monday, February 13, 2006
BY SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT
News Special Writer
Just a few tips for anyone planning to attend Wednesday's University Musical Society concert of Dutch composer Louis Andriessen's works:
Forget the usual and customary concert time, and the usual and customary concert expectations.
Dress warmly; don't leave home without hat, gloves or scarf. Do bring along a spirit of adventure.
And if nudity on screen in the service of art troubles you, stay at home or skip the film that constitutes the performance's second half.
Staying home, though, deprives you of an evening of works by one of Europe's most eminent - and maverick - living composers. Andriessen, 66, has a catalog of staggeringly diverse works in almost all established genres and as well as in genres he forged alone. A central figure in the Dutch contemporary arts scene, Andriessen often writes for unusual combinations or instruments (lots of winds), and, more recently for voice and strings.
His music, which mixes and quotes from genres "high'' and "low,'' has distinctive sonorities and propulsive energy. It may not sound familiar, but it is accessible, seductive and avant-garde.
Andriessen is in residence at the University of Michigan for the next two weeks, speaking, working with students, conducting master classes and, of course, presiding over concerts of his works.
"The name of this university is quite well known in Holland,'' he said by phone from there before departing for the U.S. "It's one of the few universities where you can study Dutch language. When poets in Holland can't be reached, you know they have a semester in Ann Arbor.''
Programming director Michael Kondziolka describes Wednesday's concert as "accessible, exciting, entertaining and immediate.''
The entire concert is "outside the box.'' The beginning, in fact, is outside the theater. That's where the warm clothing comes in. Things get under way at 7:30 p.m. at Burton Memorial Tower, with a piece Andriessen wrote for carillon, "Arrival of Willibrord.''
Andriessen wrote "Willibrord'' at the request of his hometown of Utrecht. "During the war,'' he said, referring to World War II, "the bells in the city were hidden from the Germans, who had the tendency to have them melted for cannons. When I was 6 years old, at the Liberation, the first thing the city did was to put the bells back in the towers. It made an enormous impression on me.''
And who was Willibrord? Andriessen said he was an Irish monk who galloped into the Netherlands to Christianize the population. "At that time,'' he said, "we were a completely wild and savage people. And we still are,'' he added tongue-in-cheek.
Willibrord's musical escapades last about 9 minutes. Then, with the sound of his horse's last hoofbeats, listeners can trot off to Power Center, where the remainder of the concert takes place.
The U-M Symphony Band will be on hand to help recreate live the music for Andriessen's 1991 film with Peter Greenaway, "M is for Man, Music, and Mozart,'' which will be screened post-intermission to constitute the program's second half.
The film, commissioned by the BBC to mark the 200th anniversary of Mozart's death, mixes animation, theater and dance, and the dancers, nude and powdered white, appear on a set based on a 17th century theater of anatomy.
A woman sings words through the alphabet until she reaches the letter "M,'' at which point the Gods decide to use it to make Man. Parts of the body and words beginning with the letter M are displayed, while the naked, flour-white performers assemble the Man. Text on screen explains that having made Man, it was necessary to give him movement, and then music. Music reaches its apotheosis in Mozart - an interesting statement from a most avant-garde 20th- and 21st-century composer.
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Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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