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Project Website: http://slought.org/content/11379/
Slought Foundation and Soundfield NFP are pleased to announce an evening of new and experimental music featuring French violist Vincent Royer, New York-based guitarist David Grubbs, and Philadelphia-based Ensemble Noamnesia performing music by Luc Ferrari on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 from 8:00-9:30pm. This concert is part of the 2007-2008 Soundfield @ Slought series.
Luc Ferrari (1929–2005) was a French composer, particularly noted for his electronic music. Ferrari was born in Paris and studied the piano under Alfred Cortot, musical analysis under Olivier Messiaen and composition under Arthur Honegger. His first works were freely atonal. In 1958 he co-founded the Groupe de Recherches Musicales with Pierre Schaeffer and François-Bernard Mâche. He taught in institutions around the world, and worked for film, theatre and radio. By the early 1960, Ferrari had begun work on his 'Hétérozygote,' a piece for magnetic tape which uses ambient environmental sounds to suggest a dramatic narrative. The use of ambient recordings was to become a distinctive part of Ferrari's musical language. Ferrari's 'Presque rien No. 1 (Le Lever du jour au bord de la mer)' (1970) is regarded as a classic of its kind. In it, Ferrari takes a day-long recording of environmental sounds at a Yugoslavian beach and, through editing, makes a piece that lasts just twenty-one minutes. It has been seen as an affirmation of John Cage's idea that music is always going on all around us, and if only we were to stop to listen to it, we would realise this. Ferrari continued to write purely instrumental music as well as his electronic pieces. He also made a number of documentary films on contemporary musicians in rehearsal, including Olivier Messiaen and Cecil Taylor.
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Violist and composer Vincent Royer was born in Strasbourg, France. He studied music in Strasbourg and then in Germany with Ulrich Koch and Rainer Moog. He has received wide recognition for his work as a performer of new music, improvised music and classical music. He is a violist in the Guerzenichchorchester in Cologne and has performed with many top ensembles for new music in Germany, France and Belgium. Currently he is a violist with Musique Nouvel in Belgium. He has worked with many important composers, including Gerard Grisey, Pascal Dusapin, Luc Ferrari, Mauricio Kagel, Denys Bouliane, Robert HP Platz, Earle Brown, Andrew Toovey and Horatiu Radelescu. He has performed in numerous festivals of new music, including Darmstadt, Ars Musica in Brussels, Lucero de Paris, Musicia festival in Strasbourg, Witten days for new music, Calgari Festival, Sound Field in Chicago and the Salzburg Festival, among others.
Ensemble Noamnesia was founded in Chicago in 1987 and frequently performs new and experimental music. In 1997, the group initiated a series of projects with an international orientation, including a residency with German composer Helmut Lachenmann, which included four concerts of his music in collaboration with the Goethe Institute, The Museum of Contemporary Art, and The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago. Subsequent projects included performances at the Museum of Contemporary Art with the Beppie Blankerkt Dance Company and the music of Charles Ives, a concert of music by Gerhard Staebler and Kunsu Shim, and two concerts of music by George Crumb. More recently, featured composers have included Luc Ferrari and Otomo Yoshihide, as well as Mathias Spahlinger, Burkhard Stangl, Vinko Globokar, Nic Collins, Malcolm Goldstein, Amnon Wolman, Karlheinz Essl, Jennifer Walshe, Salvatore Sciarrino, Chao-Ming Tung, Michael Maierhof, Yuji Takahashi, and many others. Gene Coleman is the artistic director of Ensemble Noamnesia.
This program is made possible in part through the generous sponsorship or support of Sound Field NFP and grants from the Argosy Fund for Contemporary Music and the Philadelphia Music Project, a program of The Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts, with media support from Bowerbird.
 
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