Friday, November 6, 2015, 8pm Hertz Hall Ensemble intercontemporain Matthias Pintscher, Music Director PROGRAM Marco Stroppa (b. 1959) gla-dya. Études sur les rayonnements jumeaux (2006–2007) 1. Languido, lascivo (langoureux, lascif) 2. Vispo (guilleret) 3. Come una tenzone (comme un combat) 4. Lunare, umido (lunaire, humide) 5. Scottante (brûlant) Jens McManama, horn Jean-Christophe Vervoitte, horn Frank Bedrossian (b. 1971) We met as Sparks (2015) United States première Emmanuelle Ophèle, bass flute Alain Billard, contrabass clarinet Odile Auboin, viola Éric-Maria Couturier, cello 19 PROGRAM Beat Furrer (b. 1954) linea dell’orizzonte (2012) INTERMISSION Kurt Hentschläger (b. 1960)* Cluster.X (2015) Edmund Campion (b. 1957) United States première Kurt Hentschläger, electronic surround soundtrack and video Edmund Campion, instrumental score and live processing Jeff Lubow, software (CNMAT) * Audiovisual artist Kurt Hentschläger in collaboration with composer Edmund Campion. Ensemble intercontemporain’s U.S. tour is sponsored by the City of Paris and the French Institute. Additional support is provided by the FACE Foundation Contemporary Music Fund. This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsor Ross Armstrong, in memory of Jonas (Jay) Stern. Hamburg Steinway piano provided by Steinway & Sons of San Francisco. Cal Performances’ – season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. PLAYBILL ORCHESTRA ROSTER ENSEMBLE INTERCONTEMPORAIN Emmanuelle Ophèle flute, bass flute Didier Pateau oboe Philippe Grauvogel oboe Jérôme Comte clarinet Alain Billard bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet Pascal Gallois bassoon Paul Riveaux bassoon Jens McManama horn Jean-Christophe Vervoitte horn Clément Saunier trumpet Jérôme Naulais trombone Benny Sluchin trombone Samuel Favre percussion Gilles Durot percussion Victor Hanna percussion Sébastien Vichard piano Jeanne-Marie Conquer violin Hae-Sun Kang violin Odile Auboin viola John Stulz viola Éric-Maria Couturier cello ADDITIONAL MUSICIANS Fabio Brum trumpet Christelle Séry electric guitar PROGRAM NOTES Marco Stroppa Africa, which is populated by musicians with gla-dya. Études sur les rayonnements breathtaking rhythmic finesse, the second and jumeaux fifth studies freely use rhythmic elements from for two horns the Malinka repertoire. Like the majority of my work, the music of Commissioned by the Ensemble intercontem - this evening is presented in a preliminary (al - porain. Composed in 2006–2007. Premièred on beit still very advanced) stage to validate cer - April 5, 2007, in the Espace de projection, tain musical hypothesizes. I would like to IRCAM, Paris, by Jens McManama and Jean- extend my greatest gratitude to Jens Christophe Vervoitte. McNamana and Jean-Christophe Vervoitte. These two musicians, who I first heard at Radiance: the process by which a vibrating Ensemble intercontemporain concerts, have source sends energy through a medium. inspired me to embark on this “spatial” road. For all objects that produce radiance, re - Marco Stroppa gardless of their environment, a medium of Translated by Scott Rubin communication is required. All sound sources (instrument, speaker, etc.) have characteristics Franck Bedrossian of their own. Among them, the horn is surely We met as Sparks the most intriguing. Like all brass instruments, for bass flute, contrabass clarinet, viola, and cello the horn’s radiance (the projection pattern of its sound) is directional, like a fairly narrow Commissioned by the Ensemble intercontem - beam of light. However, when compared to the porain. Composed in 2015. Premièred on trumpet or the trombone, the flared shape of October 25, 2015, at the Essen Philharmonie by the horn’s bell results in a less-focused projec - the soloists of the Ensemble intercontemporain: tion. Moreover, the bell’s backward position - Emmanuelle Ophèle, bass flute; Alain Billard, ing means that one perceives only the indirect contrabass clarinet; Odile Auboin, viola; and sound—a sound that is heard only after it is re - Éric-Maria Couturier, cello. flected off of surrounding objects. My first area of investigation when writing The composition of a piece of music often this piece was to study these directional char - starts by defining its instrumentation. In this acteristics and incorporate them in the selec - work, it acts as a quartet of many facets, each tion of musical materials: each “study” offers a among them explored and developed through different relationship between the two horns. the compositional process. This relationship creates a space between the The musical material of this double duo, instruments which is explored in the music. which unfolds in the middle and low registers, For example, when the bell is facing the back gives the ensemble a particular color. The ma - of the stage (in studies one and four), the in - terial evolves at low pressure, feeding a dis - strument plays the role of an echo—a remote, cernible imbalance of power between the almost secret, source. musicians, and with it, the creating the prem - The other area of research regarded the con - ise of the dramaturgy within the form. cept of “double”: why use two equal instruments From this texture, I wished to extract a in lieu of other combinations? This concept is range of rich, contrasting, and opposing har - thematically linked to 19th-century German lit - monic colors—a game of continuous ex - erature (the concept of “Doppelgänger”) and changes between the low and high registers, the 20th-century concept of psychoanalysis, but provoking tensions, echoes, and divergences. I found the closest description of “double” in a To complete the visual analogy, I placed at myth of creation belonging to the Malinka cul - the heart of the piece a poem by Emily ture of West Africa. In tribute to this region of Dickinson—written with the bow—to evoke PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES the gleaming reflections looming from the Ensemble intercontemporain, conducted by separation and the obscured (958): Jayce Ogren. We met as Sparks — Diverging Flints Sent various — scattered ways — Cluster.X is a hybrid media performance de - We parted as the Central Flint signed to be played by a group of virtual bodies Were cloven with an Adze — and the Ensemble intercontemporain. All pro - Subsisting on the Light We bore tagonists, both real and unreal, create the music. Before We felt the Dark — Cluster.X is a collaborative work by A Flint unto this Day — perhaps — Edmund Campion and Kurt Hentschläger But for that single Spark. based on the existing audiovisual work, Franck Bedrossian Cluster by Mr. Hentschläger. Translated by Scott Rubin Emerging from a dialogue between the composers/artists, an adapted, dramaturgically Beat Furrer re-edited version is the starting point and in - linea dell’orizzonte spiration for Edmund Campion’s score for the for ensemble Ensemble intercontemporain instrumentalists. Cluster.X consists of three music/sound com - Composed in 2012. Premièred on October 21, 2012, ponents: (1) el ectronic soundtrack of the Cluster at the Musiktage, Donaueschingen, by Ensemble video, composed by Mr. Hentschläger; (2) en - Ascolta, conducted by Johannes Kalitzke. semble instrumental score, composed by Mr. Campion; (3) spatial sound diffusion (com - “What interested me was the phenomenon of posed by both Mr. Hentschläger an d Mr. Campion, doubling, but also of the distortion into a with support from the Center for New Music and shadow and the creation of the process-related Audio Technologies and Jeff Lubow. resulting from this intersecting of voices into each other,” says Beat Furrer. In the weightless choreography of Cluster.X , In linea dell’orizzonte , his composition for human figures appear mostly as an undiffer - the Ensemble Ascolta, this principle of trans - entiated particle blur and sound as a pulsing, formation is applied to a heterogeneous group amorphous mass, together forming a cloud of of instruments of piano, violin, cello, clarinet, ambiguous matter made of body parts, light trumpet, trombone, percussion, and electric and drone. Cluster.X describes a meta-organ - guitar and realized in a rich, diversified mate - ism with a decidedly anti-individualistic char - rial. Out of the intertwining of the voices acter, yet still unmistakably human. emerges a study of distorted shadows. Kurt Hentschläger Marie Luise Maintz The impeccable musicians of the Ensemble Kurt Hentschläger & Edmund Campion intercontemporain are installed and mated Cluster.X to the audiovisual artwork Cluster.X . We are for 16 instruments, video with multichannel intercrossing the arts, where all manner of electronic sound, and real-time spatial audio hell might break loose. Out of all these processing pieces, there really is no puzzle to be solved, no better art form to be bred. There is only Commissioned by the Ensemble intercontem - the hope of gaining a moment , one born porain and Arcadi Île-de-France. Composed in from a deeply interwoven collaboration with 2015. Premièred on October 9, 2015, at the Cité artist Kurt Hentschläger. Yes, it is another de la musique-Philharmonie 2Paris, by the mixed-media show! Yet each one, particu larly PROGRAM NOTES this one, simultaneously dismisses and de - Cluster production Kurt Hentschläger 2009–2015 : Original sires the moment , an immersion into the cur - coproduction: Arcadi, France. Additional production and residency support provided by EMPAC/ Rensselaer rent-day Mysterium (the space of the numen , Polytechnic Institute and the Jaffe Fund for Experimental the place of beauty). Media and Performing Arts. Edmund