UMS 'n JIP Swiss Contemporary Music Duo voice, recorder & electronics

SILENCE

DIETER SCHNEBEL from: Redeübungen für Hand und Mund, 1984/5

LUCIANO BERIO Gesti per flauto dolce, 1966

JOHN CAGE Lecture on Nothing, 1950/61 (English: J.Cage / French: M. Fong / Gerrnan: E. Jandl / arr. JIP)

MAURICIO KAGEL Atem (für einen Bläser), 1969

GEORGES APERGHIS from: récitations pour une voix seule, 1977/8

'Silence' bespielt wegweisende Werke des 20 Jh.: John Cages berühmter 'Vortrag uber Nichts' wird im englischen Original bzw. in der kongenialen Übersetzung Ernst Jandls (deutsch) bzw. Monique Fongs (frz.) in einer Fassung von JIP für Stimme und Metronom präsentiert, welche die Strukturelemente des Stucks spielerisch hör- und sichtbar macht. In Cage'scher Manier werden darüber, davor und danach Stücke von Kagel, Schnebel, Aperghis und Berio gelegt, die notationstechnisch, formal und klanglich musikhistorisch prägend für das 20./21. Jh. sind. Gerade Cages Vortrag ist live ausserst selten zu hören, und ist in der Bearbeitung von UMS 'n JIP besonders reizvoll ausgearbeitet. Das Programm wurde 2007 am Schweizerischen Tonkünstlerfest im Theaterhaus Gessnerallee Zurich uraufgeführt und wurde bisher 40 Mal in 8 Ländern, unter anderem am Avignon Festival (Palais Royal / Theatre Notre Dame), an den Latvian New Music Days, Rostov na Donu (RUS / Museum für zeitgenössische Kunst)), am Musikpodium der Stadt Zürich, am ITU MIAM Istanbul, am Festival Mixtur Barcelona, am Avgo Music Village Thessaloniki, am Festival ME_MMIX Palma sowie bei Roaring Hooves in der Mongolei aufgeführt.

Dieter Schnebel - Born in Lahr/Baden in 1930. In 1976 Schnebel was appointed professor of experimental music and musicology at the Berlin Hochschule der Künste where he taught until his retirement from the academic chair in 1995. By founding the theatre group "Die Maulwerker", Schnebel systemized his open concept of work of spatially acting instruments and voices of unconventionally entering musicians, a concept which can only partly be attributed to "Fluxus". http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Schnebel

Georges Aperghis - born in Athens in 1945. Since settling in Paris in 1963 he has led an original and independent career, dividing his time between instrumental or vocal compositions, musical theater and opera. In 1976, he founded the Atelier Théâtre et Musique (ATEM). This structure allowed for a complete renewal of his compositional activity, making use of musicians as well as actors : his shows are inspired by everyday life, events in society are transformed into a world of poetry, a world often absurd and satirical — Récitations (1978), Jojo (1990), Sextuor (1993), Commentaires (1996) — récitations has become a "superhit" among contemporary vocal compositions. www.aperghis.com

John Cage - Cage's 'Lecture on Nothing', a reading from 1950, signals a shift in his thinking on silence. He realizes that the important role of silence regarding musical structure does not yet establish a full recognition of its positive qualities. 'What we require is silence; but what silence requires is that I go on talking ... But now there are silences and the words make help make the silences ... We need not fear the silences, we may love them' Silence is no longer the absence of sounds; silence itself consists of sounds. Silence begets sounds. Through the intertwining of silence and sound, their mutual penetrability now becomes appreciated. Each retains a part of its antipode; each requires the other as its frame. The necessary interdependency between sound and silence relates to two principal aspects: silence is not only the precondition for sound - this means that silence contains sound - every sound in turn harbors silence as well. Sound and silence develop in a parallel way without mutual exclusion; the one is always already present in the other. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage

Mauricio Kagel - A retired musician for long time dovotes himself to the study of the same piece, meanwhile he's maniacal with the maintenance of his instrument. He keeps on trying until a very sweet phrase is finally played and frees him for ever. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauricio_Kagel

Luciano Berio (1925-2003) est réputé pour ses travaux expérimentaux et son travail de pionnier dans la musique électroacoustique. Il étudia au Conservatoire Giuseppe Verdi de Milan chez Giulio Cesare Paribeni et Giorgio Federico Ghedini. C'est à cette époque qu'il découvre les compositeurs modernes de la seconde école de Vienne (Schönberg, Berg, Webern), mais aussi Bartok, Stravinski, Hindemith et Milhaud. Blessé à la main, il ne peut continuer ses études de piano et gagne sa vie comme accompagnateur de classes de chant. Il fait ainsi la connaissance de la soprano américaine Cathy Berberian qu'il épousa en 1950. En 1951, il se rendit aux États-Unis à Tanglewood pour étudier chez Dallapiccola qui poussa son intérêt vers les principes du sérialisme. Il participa aux Ferienkurse für Neue Musik à Darmstadt où il fit la connaissance de Boulez, Stockhausen, Ligeti et Kagel. Il commença à s’intéresser à la musique électronique et fonda en 1954 à Milan le Studio di Fonologia musicale avec Maderna et Nono. Il y invita de nombreux compositeurs comme Henri Pousseur et John Cage. Entre autres, il devint éditeur d’une revue consacrée à la musique expérimentale, les Incontri Musicali. En 1960, il retourna à Tanglewood et, à l'invitation de Milhaud en 1962, il devint professeur au Mills College à Oakland, Californie. À partir de 1965, il enseigna à l'université Harvard et à la Juilliard School of Music où il fonda le Juilliard Ensemble qui se consacre à la musique contemporaine (New York, 1967). En 1966, il gagne le « Prix Italia » pour son œuvre Laborintus II. En 1968 sera présentée au public son œuvre la plus marquante, la Sinfonia. De 1974 à 1980, il fut directeur du département d’acoustique de l’IRCAM à Paris. À Florence, il fonda, en 1987, le Tempo Reale, un centre de même orientation que l'IRCAM. De 1994 à 2000, il fut compositeur en résidence à Harvard.

UMS 'n JIP ['umsnjip]. Founded by Ulrike Mayer-Spohn [UMS] and Javier Hagen [JIP], UMS 'n JIP is with more than 600 concerts and 150 commissioned works since 2007 one of the most active contemporary music ensembles worldwide performing >100 international concerts annually, including mobile chamber operas & multimedia performances. Since their studies (composing, audio design & musical performance) in Holland, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, UMS and JIP have been invited to prestigious contemporary music and theatre festivals (Avignon, Paris, Strasbourg, Marseille, TKF Zürich, TKF Lausanne, Lucerne, Basel, Bern, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Ulan Bator, New York, Donaueschingen, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Berlin, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Riga, Thessaloniki, Istanbul, Adelaide) where they have premiered more than 200 works as soloists and as a duo, collaborating with both world famous and aspiring young composers such as Goebbels, Rihm, Kagel, Reimann, Eötvös, Luis Codera Puzo, Stefan Pohlit, Vladimir Gorlinsky, Chikashi Miyama, Huang Ruo, Wen Deqing and Guo Wenjing. UMS 'n JIP explore new musical and scenic settings for voice, recorders and electronics ranging from live to digital performance as well as European to non-European music. Pluriannual collaboration providing common research, rehearsals and recordings with the concerned composers as well as an exceptionally high amount of performances all around the world do result the works commissioned by UMS 'n JIP to be among the most often performed compositions of each composer. UMS 'n JIP are also involved in the direction of the Swiss Contemporary Music Festival Forum : : Wallis, chaired by the International Society for Contemporary Music Wallis/Switzerland IGNM-VS. JIP is the actual president of ISCM Switzerland and board member of the UNESCO Commission for the Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Canton of Valais. Within these structures, UMS 'n JIP have initiated more than 200 additional projects and commissions. Since 2013 UMS 'n JIP take part in two international research projects: The Recorder Map and i-Treasures. UMS 'n JIP is coached by Irvine Arditti. Http://umsnjip.ch

UMS ´n JIP Post Office Box 317, CH - 3900 Brig / Switzerland Ulrike Mayer-Spohn & Javier Hagen, associate artistic directors mobile: +41 76 587 74 13 / e-mail: [email protected] / Youtube: http://youtube.com/umsnjip / Facebook: http://facebook.com/umsnjip

Cover photo: Martin Ramis