ECCO

featuring the Sturm und Klang Ensemble

Brussels, 16 February 2016

PROGRAMME The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. THE EUROPEAN CONTEMPORARY (ECCO)

ECCO is an ECSA project dedicated to performing and promoting contemporary art music and to reaching new audiences. It operates as a network of active ensembles, and young professionals, supporting creative dialogue between composers and performers and offering young professionals the opportunity to develop their skills with ensembles experienced in performing contemporary music on an international level.

In 2015, ECCO presented two very successful concerts given by Sturm und Klang and the BBC Singers. At tonight’s concert, Sturm und Klang conducted by Thomas Van Haeperen will perform six pieces by different European composers selected by the ECCO Artistic Committee. Pieces are received via a call to all ECSA member societies and are carefully selected to reflect the cultural and aesthetical diversity of the European art musicin the 21st century.

The ECCO concert, and other cultural projects organized by ECSA, are aimed at increasing the visibility of ECSA and all the issues connected to the status of contemporary musiccreators.

Sturm und Klang, conducted by Thomas Van Haeperen, will tonight perform works by six composers: Michael Berkeley, Moritz Eggert, Olli Virtaperko, JulianGrant, Peter Helmut Lang, and Philippe Leroux.

1 THE EUROPEAN AND SONGWRITER ALLIANCE (ECSA)

The European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA) represents over 30,000 professional composers and songwriters in 24 European countries. With 45 member organisations across Europe, the Alliance speaks for the interests of music creators of contemporary art and , film and audio-visual music, as well as popular music.

The main objective of the Alliance is to defend and promote the rights of authors of music at national, European and international levels by any legal means. ECSA advocates for equitable commercial conditions for composers and songwriters and strives to improve the social and economic development of musiccreation in Europe.

ECSA was initiated in Vienna in 2006 as part of the Mozartjahr festival. It was established as an alliance in Madrid on 7 March 2007 with the purpose of becoming the central body representing the interests of all music creators in Europe, giving every composer and songwriter a European voice.

2 PROGRAMME

1. MICHAEL BERKELEY Musical Chairs

2. MORITZ EGGERT Pong

3. OLLI VIRTAPERKO Serenade

4. JULIAN GRANT Strike Opponent’s Ears with Both Fists

5. PETER HELMUT LANG Dominoeffekt

6. PHILIPPE LEROUX AAA

FEATURING THE STURM UND KLANG ENSEMBLE Conducted by Thomas Van Haeperen

3 THE COMPOSERS MICHAEL BERKELEY Musical Chairs

Michael Berkeley was born in 1948, the eldest son of the composer Sir Lennox Berkeley and a godson of Benjamin Britten. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music and later with Richard Rodney Bennett. Berkeley has held Associate Composer roles with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and later with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, during which he composed notable works such as Or Shall We Die?, Organ Concerto and Concerto for Orchestra. Berkeley currently presents Radio 3's Private Passions and was Chairman of the Governors of The Royal Balletfrom 2003 to 2012. Recent compositions include Magna Carta Te Deum, commissioned by Lincoln Cathedral to mark the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta, and The Tale of Andrew; an anthem that sets text by Bishop Thomas Ken relating the life of St Andrew. Berkeley was appointed a CBE for services to music in 2012 and has been made an independent peer in the House of Lords.

Musical Chairs Forpiano, windsoloists and stringtrio (2010)

Musical Chairs was written as a 70th birthday tribute to the founder and Artistic Director of the ensemble, Amelia Freedman.

The work opens with a brief expressive melody heard on the viola, but quickly juxtaposed with accentuated rhythmic bursts, which become prolonged and texturally denser as the piece progresses. This contrast occurs throughout the Credit: short, up-beat piece, with the rhythmic bursts becoming http://www.michaelberkel denser in texture each time round. ey.co.uk. The piece was first premiered at a birthday concert by the Nash Ensemble on 21 November 2010 at Wigmore Hall in .

4 MORITZ EGGERT Pong

Moritz Eggert was born 1965 in Heidelberg. As a composer he is comfortably shifting between many musical genres, which confuses or delights the avant-garde or classical audience. His works have often gathered media attention withworks like the soccer oratorio “Die Tiefe des Raumes” (written for the Ruhrtriennale as part of the cultural program of the Football Championship 2006) or his “Freax” based on the infamous and long banned film by Tod Browning. For Eggert contemporary music should not be aimed at an insider or expert audience but it should also not cater to the lowest common denominator. There is a way in between which is part of his personal theory of “atopical” (or “placeless”) music.

A large part of his body of work is for musical theatre. He wrote 12 as well as several ballets and dance theatre pieces. He is also interested in – sometimes performative and experimental like his piano cycle “Haemmerklavier” or intimate and intense like his song cycle “Neue Dichter Lieben”, but also has written extensively for orchestras and large ensembles.

At the moment he works on new operas for Bonn and Amsterdam, a large work for voice and orchestra called “Muzak” for musica viva in Munich, and a double bass solo for the International ARD-competition.

As a pianist, singer, conductor and performer he has championed both modern and classical repertoire and is a sought accompanist and chamber music partner. For the Neue Musikzeitung he has created the “Bad Blog of Musick” which is the most read contemporary music blog in Germany, but also writes extensively for various print mediums. He was part of the recent ARTE- documentation about the history of music (“Epochen der Musikgeschichte”).

Eggert lives in Munich together with his wife, the author Andrea Heuser, and his son Milo and daughter Siri. Credit: http:w.ww.moritzegge rt.de.

5 Pong (for septet) Forflute, clarinet, stringquartet and piano (2002)

Pong was the first ever computer game, and still has a kind of legendary reputation as the game that spawned the billion dollar computer game industry. Although on the surface there seems to be a development in graphics and presentation, the basis of all these games is found in “pong”: objects in motion that hit or miss each other. One could argue that the same could be saidabout life itself.

“Hocket” would be the musical equivalent to “pong”. My piece “pong” is a kind of musical game using an imaginary “racquet” that hits and misses notes, sends them to other players, stops them dead, etc. For this technique at least two players are needed – “hocket” doesn’t work when you’re on your own.

When we look at motion itself, it seems to be the most elementary element of music – without motion of some sort there is no sound. Without sound there is no communication. Without the will to communicate something there is no need for any musical composition. This is why in this piece I embrace the principle of “pong” – as I embrace life itself.

The piece was first performed at Conservatoire national superieur de musique et de danse de Paris on 29 August 2002. Having completed this course, a turning point in his career, embarked on an intensive course of private study and attended the composition laboratories held by the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra and the University of Turku in 1994, 1996 and 1998. He has been a full-time composer since 2001.

6 OLLI VIRTAPERKO Serenade

Olli Virtaperko is a Finnish composer (b 1973), who entered the world of musicat the age of 8 when he began learning the cello. He was trained as a composer at Edinburgh University and at Sibelius Academy in Finland, where he received his Master of Music degree in 2005. Virtaperko’s compositions are characterized by their structural sensitivity, idiomatic use of instruments and imaginative orchestration. His musical language reflects and draws on aesthetic and stylistic influences from many sources, such as spectralism, renaissance instrumental polyphony and progressive rock. Virtaperko's versatile approach to music has been on display in his Ensemble Ambrosius, a group that plays contemporary music with baroque instruments and is known for its performances and recordings of Frank Zappa’s music and Virtaperko’s own work.

Virtaperko is the vice chairman of the FinnishSociety of Composers and he served as the artistic director of Tampere Biennale festival from 2010 to 2014. He is also a cultural commentator and has hosted radio programs on classical music for the FinnishBroadcasting Company YLE since 2007.

Serenade For chamber orchestra (flute, clarinet, bassoon, two violins, viola, cello and double bass) (2008)

The short and subtle Serenade focuses on the concepts of cantabile and lightness – the two characteristic features of serenades. The piece’s use of natural string harmonics creates the feeling of transparency in the music, while the melodic focus is on the woodwinds.

Photo: Jaakko Lehtinen The piece was premiered on 29 November 2008 in Helsinki.

7 JULIAN GRANT Strike Opponents’s Fists with Both Hands

Julian Grant is a composer, writer, educator, music journalist, and broadcaster. He was born in London in 1960, and has resided in Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo. Since 2010 he has divided his time between the US and the UK. He has composed 18 operas, which have been performed by , , Almeida Opera, Mecklenburgh Opera, and Tétè-a-Tétè. The Skin Drum (1988) won the National Opera Association of America’s New Opera prize and Out of Season (1991) was nominated for an Olivier Award. He writes extensively on opera, Russianand contemporary music.

From 2002 to 2007, he was director of music at St. Paul’s Girls’ School in London, a post previously occupied by , Vaughan-Williams and Herbert Howells. He has worked for Hong Kong University, hosted a radio show for RTHK, and has been involved in education work for London’s major opera houses, including an extensive tour of Russia in 1990 with English National Opera. He worked extensively with the Beijing New Music Ensemble, and studied the Ya ng -Qin (Butterfly Harp) while living in China. From 2010-13 he was Composer in Residence at Saint Ann’s School, Brooklyn. A long-term relationship with the experimental opera company Tête-a-Tête produced miniature works: Platform 10, Odd Numbers, Anger and Only Connect, and the full-length Odysseus Unwound, which toured Britainand Europe in 2006-7, featuring traditional spinners, weavers and knitters from Fair Isle among the performers, and was featured on BBC’s ‘The Culture Show’. A dance opera, Hot House, produced by TV’s ‘The Choir’s’ Gareth Malone, was commissioned for the Cultural Olympiad in London and performed at the in July 2012.

His collected songs and an album of piano works, Shivereens, were recently published. New works include Sancho’s Dance-Mix for Buskaid, Soweto, and piano preludes for Melvyn Tan. Credits: He is currently working on an opera, Body Business, a google.com/site/julian recipient of an Opera America grant. Future projects grantmusic include an opera for UK’s InterOpera, and an orchestral work for the Princeton Symphony Orchestra.

8 Strike Opponent's Ears With Both Fists For flute, clarinet, piano and (2008)

The title refers to a portion of a Ta i j i Quan martial arts routine. Ta i j i Quan, ironically meaning ‘ultimate fist’, has attained unparalleled popularity today as an exercise which links health and meditation to traditional unarmed combat techniques to bring focus and spiritual relaxation to the practitioner. Lao Tzu, in his philosophical classic, The Tao Te Ching, wrote ‘the soft and flexible will defeat the hard and the strong’; and in just such a way, Taiji Quan negates the notion of force conquering force. Instead, students are trained to meet force with softness, achieving victory through the attainment of balance. Correct motion can only be born of absolute stillness, and the piece progresses from stasis to animatedconflict.

The piece was commissioned by the Chroma ensemble and first performed on 8 June 2008 in Norwich, UK.

9 PETER HELMUT LANG Dominoeffekt

Peter Helmut Lang was born in 1974 and grew up in the region of Stuttgart. He studied composition, electroacoustics and music theory at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar, Germany and the Akademia Muzyczna in Lodz, Poland withReinhard Wolschina, Hans Tutschku, Bronislaw Przybylski, Hermann Sprenger and Robin Minard. He has won several prizes as a composer (recently the Thüringer Kompositionspreis 2015) and has had commissions from well-known artists. He has been awarded several artist scholarships including Studienstipendium der GFPS, Künstlerstipendium der Kulturstiftung Thüringen or Aufenthaltsstipendium auf Schloss Hundisburg.

He has written solo works, chamber music, orchestral works, choral music, songs and electroacoustic music, and also music for film and theatre. Peter Helmut Lang lives as freelance composer, pianist and music teacher in Weimar and Leipzig. He is board member of the via nova – zeitgenössische Musik e.V. and artistic director of Klangnetz Thüringen

. Dominoeffekt For flute, clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), violin, cello and piano (2008)

The music of Dominoeffekt is inspired by the movie Der Lauf der Dinge (The way things go) by the Swiss filmmakers duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss. The movie documents a long causal chain assembled of everyday objects, a “Rube Goldberg”, with the use of materials such as tires, trash bags, ladders, soap, oil drums, and gasoline. There are some moments in the music where you may think to hear a domino stand, slowly move out Credits: of balance and then fall, evoking a chain reaction that starts the http://www.otz.be ball rolling. In fact every event in the composition seems to be connected to the other. Nevertheless you can’t read Peter Helmut Lang’s music as just illustrating physical objects and events. There is also a poetic and joyful quality to it that allows the listeners to make up their own images andexplanations.

The piece was first performed on 10 April 2008 in London.

10 PHILIPPE LEROUX AAA

Philippe Leroux was born in Boulogne Billancourt (France) on September 24th, 1959. In 1978 he entered the Paris Conservatory (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique), studied with Ivo Malec, Claude Ballif, Pierre Schäeffer and Guy Reibel and obtained three first prizes. Meanwhile, he followed classes with Olivier Messiaen, Franco Donatoni, Betsy Jolas, Jean- Claude Eloy and Iannis Xénakis. In 1993 he was selected to enter the Villa Medicis in Romefor two years, where he remained until 1995.

With his music being widely performed in international festivals and orchestras such as Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmony... Philippe Leroux's compositional output includes symphonic, vocal, electronic, acousmatic and chamber music. Born in Boulogne Billancourt 1959, he entered the Paris Conservatory in 1978 studying with Ivo Malec, Claude Ballif and Pierre Schäeffer and obtained three first prizes. Other prizes and awards include: Best contemporary musical creation Award 1996 for (d')ALLER, SACEM Prize, Fondation Simone et Cino del Duca, André Caplet, Nadia and Lili Boulanger Prizes from the Academy of Fine Arts (Institut de France), Arthur Honegger Prize (Fondation de France) for his overhall production. He is fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. From 2001 to 2006 he was a teacher in composition at IRCAM in the frame of the "Cursus d'Informatique Musicale". From 2007 to 2009 he was composer- in-residence at Metz Arsenal and at Orchestre National de Lorraine, then since 2009 to 2011, invited Professor at Université de Montréal (UdeM) and composer in residence with the MEITAR ensemble. From September 2011 he is Associate Professor in composition at McGill University. He has received many prizes and awards: Prix Hervé Dugardin, Best contemporary musical creation Award 1996 for (d')ALLER, SACEM Prize, André Caplet, Nadia and Lili Boulanger, composition prize 2015 of the Fondation Simone et Cino del Duca from the Academy of Fine Arts (Institut de France), Salabert Prize for his piece Apocalypsis and Arthur Honegger Prize (Fondation de France) for his overall production. In 2015, he was elected member of the Royal Society of Canada.

Credits: http://www.lerouxcompositio n.com

11 AAA For flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano and percussion (1995/6)

This piece is an instrumental version of Image à Rameau, a work composed for four MIDI channels. The main idea is to transfer the world of electronic music into a behaviour of the instrumental music strictlyrespecting the original partition.

This piece is an instrumentation of my piece “Image à Rameau” composed for four MIDI wind-controllers. The initial idea is to transpose some musical behaviours issued from the world of electronic sound to the instrumental domain while strictly respecting the initial score. But as in all projects of this kind, there are some obvious overflows of the framework, in the sense that the new piece acquires real autonomy because the instrumental way of playing induces a musicality which is not contained in the electronic model. While the global shape and structure of the piece remain identical, however it does not hold true for the musical language. One moment the ear gets immediately attached to the timbre, the dynamic morphologies and to the harmonized colours, in another it is the syntactic element that appears first, privileged by the unity of the referential timbres (everyone recognizes the sound of the clarinets and the violin etc.) and the predominance of the pitch. In both pieces it is indeed the same music but they don’t express the same thing. Philippe Leroux

The piece was premiered on 16 January 1998 by Ictus ensemble (conductor: Georges-Elie Octors).

12 STURM UND KLANG ENSEMBLE Thomas Van Haeperen

Thomas Van Haeperen is the musical director and head of programming of Ensemble Sturm und Klang. With the Ensemble he has presented many international and Belgian premieres of contemporary works (such as Schnittke, Guerrero, Leroux, Widmann, Van Rossum, Rens, Hoop, ...). He is passionate about the great Classical, Romantic and 20th century repertoire. He has also led the National Orchestra of Belgium, Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles, Europa Choir, Akademie, Pauliner Kammerorchester, ensemble ON, ensemble Dextuor, the Orchestra and Choir of the Leipzig University and was assistant of Leo Hussain, guest conductor at La Monnaie.

Winner of the Belgian Vocation Foundation, Thomas Van Haeperen studied conducting in Germany, in Leipzig, withWolfgang Unger. He also took masterclasses in Mainz with Sylvain Cambreling, to whom he says he owes the rigor and sensitivity in his interpretation of contemporary repertoire.

Mr. Van Haeperen holds a degree in vi olin as well as Masters in philosophy; he is interested in all that unites music to thinking, memory and time. He is responsible for an orchestra class at the Academy of Arts of the City of Brussels and the IMEP.

13 STURM UND KLANG ENSEMBLE

Referring to the pre-romantic notion of Sturm und Drang, a movement conducted by youth who had ideals such as freedom, passion and the emancipation of the individual, Sturm und Klang, (“Storm and Sound”), possess energy, ardour and enthusiasm as their major assets. It is in this spirit that the musicians of the orchestra, established in 2000 by Thomas Van Haeperen, share a momentum and a commitment to projects that claim their dynamism, their sensibilityand their creativity.

Depending on the repertoire, Sturm und Klang either comes together as the Sturm und Klang Orchestra, or ina smallerformationas the Sturm und Klang Ensemble.

Sturm und Klang’s programme focuses mainly on the 20th and the 21st century repertoire, with original and demanding projects, in the spirit of discovering and conquering new ways of listening. The programme also actively supports Belgian music creation, especiallythe young generationof Belgiancreators.

Sturm und Klang has appeared at festivals such as Ars Musica, LOOP, les Inattendues, Midis-Minimes, ProPulse, BE:Classics (Paris); Hörfest Neue Musik (Detmold), as well as at Halles de Schaerbeek, at l’Espace Senghor, at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and at La Monnaie. In addition to this, the orchestra sets up an autonomous and bold programme at la Maison du Peuple inSaintGilles.

14 Sturm und Klang is mainly supported by the commission of contemporary music of the Wallonie-Bruxelles Federation, and cooperates with the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA). It has also been part of the European network New:Aud which aims to promote contemporary music.

The Musicians

Violins: Cécile Lantenois-Duport, Eva Pusker Viola: Dominica Eyckmans Cello: Catherine Lebrun Double bass: Natacha Save Flute: Anne Davids Oboe: Kristien Ceuppens Clarinet: Philippe Saucez Bassoon: Emilia Zinko French horn: Denis Simandy Piano: FabianCoomans Percussion: Jean-Louis Maton

15 SPECIAL THANK YOU TO:

The members of the ECCO working group: Jana Andreevska, Dušan Bavdek, Lorenzo Carola and Stephen McNeff.

Mr. Leon Stefanija , professor of musicology at the University of Ljubljana, for his wonderful work with the programme.

Natalie Bleicher and Issy Bingham from BASCA for proof reading the text.

The composers societies of each composer featured at tonight’s concert: the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA), Deutscher Komponistenverband (DKV,) and the Society of Finnish Composers (SSR).

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