Claire Chase, Flute Density 2036
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Saturday, December 2, 2017, 4:30pm Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive Claire Chase , flute Density 2036 World-Premiere Marathon Performance Parts I-V (2013 –17) with Tyshawn Sorey, percussion Pauchi Sasaki, violin and voice Levy Lorenzo, sound designer and live electronics Density 2036: Part I (Prelude) is dedicated to Fred Anderson. Density 2036: Part II (2014) is dedicated to Elise Mann. Density 2036: Part III (2015) is dedicated to Steven Schick. Density 2036: Part IV (2016) is dedicated to the loving memory of Pauline Oliveros (1932 –2016). Cal Performances’ 2017 –18 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. PROGRAM NOTES Oskar Fischinger once told a young John Cage: stripped down, solitary warhorse herself, that “Everything in the world has a spirit that can be 1936 solo that singlehandedly changed the fate released through its sound.” Varèse unleashed of the flute, transforming it from an instrument this spirit for the flute, for the one all alone, in of incidental prettiness to one of raw, platinum these staggering four minutes of music. Did he potency and unbounded beauty. go as far as one could go, metaphorically and I had recorded all the individual parts of each otherwise? Of what will the Density of our time of these pieces myself, a kind of torturous be made? Of osmium? Of signal processing? Of exercise in solipsism—one so torturous that wood? Of carbon? Of flesh? Of air? I abandoned it several times before rounding —Claire Chase, up the courage to continue—and I had never excerpted from “In Search of the New Density,” imagined that the album, with all of its mani - in John Zorn’s ARCANA, Vol. 12 cured, rhythmic intricacy born of so many fits and starts in the studio, could live compellingly Density 2036 is a 23-year project begun by as a live show. But when it was finished, I Claire Chase in 2013 to commission an entirely wanted to see what would happen if I per - new body of repertory for solo flute each year formed Density the record from start to finish, until the 100th anniversary of Edgard Varèse’s without breaks, in a kind of woman-versus- groundbreaking 1936 flute solo, Density 21.5 . machine version, with the solo line from each Each season between 2014 and 2036, Chase track performed live over the pre-recorded will premiere a new full-length program of solo tracks, and with Varèse at the bitter end, bare flute work commissioned that year in a special and unadorned. performance at The Kitchen in New York City On October 3, 2013 at The Kitchen in New and on tour in select cities thereafter. Addi tion - York City, Levy Lorenzo and I played the show, ally, each cycle of works ( Density 2014, Density with lighting design by the visual artist and 2015, Density 2020 , etc.) will be released in director David Michalek, who in true low- annual world-premiere recordings, and scores, budget downtown experimental theater fashion perfor mance notes, and materials will be made constructed a brilliant, malleable light sculpture available digitally as educational resources for made up of parking-lot fluorescent tubes. The flutists everywhere. day after that concert, it was immediately clear This performance marks the first retrospec - to me that the album was just a prelude, or a tive event bringing together all of the Density muse—a toe-dip into a much deeper dive that repertoire created to date. was calling me to create expansive new environ - ments and experiences for the explo sion of the flute repertory, and for the explosion of this little PART I (2013, Prelude) tube of metal. Density 2036 was born. I call Part I the “prelude” because the project —Claire Chase was a seedling of an idea but hadn’t quite found its form yet. I had just released the album Steve Reich (b. 1936) Density , a sonic migration of progressively re - Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steve Reich ceding flute-forces beginning with a mass of has been praised as “America’s greatest living 10 flutes in Steve Reich’s frolicsome Vermont composer” ( The Village Voice ) and “…among Counterpoint (1982), to six bass flutes in Marcos the great composers of the century” ( The New Balter’s meditative Pessoa (2013) , to five flutes of York Times ). He is a leading pioneer of Mini - various sizes in Alvin Lucier’s aching, pensive malism, and his music is known for steady Almost New York (2002), to two flutes in Philip pulse, repetition, and a fascination with canons. Glass’ ebullient Piece in the Shape of a Square From his early taped speech pieces It’s Gonna (1967), to one flute enhanced with electronics Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966) to his in Mario Diaz de León’s raucous, heavy metal- and video artist Beryl Korot’s digital video inspired Luciform (2013), and finally to the opera Three Tales (2002), Reich’s path has em - b PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES braced not only aspects of Western Classical chambe r chorus, which devoted much of its music, but the structures, harmonies, and time to the performance of new music. From rhythms of non-Western and American ver - 1970–2011, he was the John Spencer Camp Pro - nacular music, particularly jazz. Reich gradu - fessor of Music at Wesleyan University, where ated with honors in philosophy from Cornell he is professor emeritus. Lucier holds degrees University in 1957. He studied at the Juilliard from Yale University and Brandeis Uni versity, School of Music and received his master’s de - as well as an honorary doctorate from Ply - gree in music from Mills College. mouth University. Marcos Balter (b. 1974) Philip Glass (b. 1937) Praised by the Chicago Tribune as “minutely One of America’s most celebrated composers, crafted” and “utterly lovely,” the New York Times Philip Glass applied his musical encounters in as “whimsical” and “surreal,” and the Washing - India, North Africa, and the Hima layas to his ton Post as “dark and deeply poetic,” the music own compositions and, by 1974, had created a of Marcos Balter is at once emo tionally visceral large body of work in a distinct idiom. His early and intellectually complex, primarily rooted in music inspired pieces by the Mabou Mines the - experimental manipula tions of timbre and ater company, which he co-founded; he later hyper-dramatization of live performance. His formed his own performing group, the Philip works have been featured world wide in venues Glass Ensemble. This marked a period that such as Carnegie Hall, Köln Philharmonie, the reached its apogee with Einstein on the Beach , a French Academy at Villa Medici, Teatro de landmark in 20th-century music-theater. Glass’ Madrid, Tokyo Bunka Kaykan, Baryshnikov work since that groundbreaking piece has in - Arts Center, and the Museum of Contemporary cluded opera, film scores, dance music, sym - Art of Chicago. During the current season, he is phonic work, string quartets, and unclassifiable featured in a Composer Portrait at the Miller work such as The Photographer/Far From the Theater in New York and has a premiere on the Truth and 1000 Airplanes on the Roof . He stud - Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella ied at the University of Chicago and the Juilliard series. Recent collaborators include the rock School of Music. band Deer hoof, Ensemble Dal Niente, Civic Or chestra of Chicago, Chicago Composers Or - Mario Diaz de León (b. 1979) chestra, Orquestra Experimental da Amazonas Mario Diaz de León is a composer and per - Filarmonica, American Contemporary Music former whose output encompasses modern Ensemble, and Chicago Q Ensemble. Born in classical and experimental electronic music, Rio de Janeiro, Balter is currently an associate and extreme metal. His debut album as a com - professor of music composition at Montclair poser, Enter Houses Of, was released in 2009 on State Uni ver sity, and lives in New York City. John Zorn’s Tzadik label and praised by the New York Times for its “hallucinatory intensity.” A Alvin Lucier (b. 1931) second album, The Soul is the Arena , was re - Alvin Lucier, a native of Nashua, New Hamp - leased in 2015 on the Denovali label and was shire, is widely considered one of the most in - named a notable recording of 2015 by The New fluential composers of the 20th century. Lucier Yorker magazine. His work has received recent actively performs, lectures, and exhibits his performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall, sound installations in the US, Europe, and Asia. Don aufestival (Austria), CTM Festival (Berlin), He was a founding member—along with Ro - Chicago Symphony Center, Venice Biennale, bert Ashley, David Behrman, and Gordon Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), Musica Nova Mumma—of the Sonic Arts Union, a collective Helsinki, National Gallery of Art (DC), and of experimental musicians that was active be - the Ojai Music Festival, and he has received tween 1966–76. Lucier taught at Brandeis com missions from the Los Angeles Philhar - Uni versity, where he conducted the university’s monic, International Con t emporary Ensemble 6 PROGRAM NOTES (ICE), Talea, and Cham ber Music America. From symbols. I asked Mend-Ooyo: “How do you cre - 2012 –16, his solo elec tronic project Onei rogen ate such incredible calligraphies?” He re plied, (o-NI-ro-jen) toured internationally and released “Meditation, meditation, meditation for a very three full-length LPs and two EPs on the Deno - long time…then calligraphy with one quick ges - vali label. Since 2015 he has led the metal band ture.” I found the approach extremely poetic. Luminous Vault as vocalist and guitarist (Pro - The following week, Claire Chase arrived at found Lore Re cords). Born in Minnesota in 1979, the castle to work with me on Parábolas na he has lived in New York City since 2004.