ManiFeste-2013 » voice

Final Holliger

root — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 20:00:00 +0000

FULL CONCERT

An evening in the musical Pantheon of Heinz Holliger, leading a group of young musicians from the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra. The conductor and composer gives free rein to his taste for polyphonic works such as that of Carter or prototypes like Ligeti’s Kammerkonzert, a work that has become a classic of the 20th century.

Heinz Holliger © Daniel Vass

The finale of ManiFeste-2013 belongs to the new a cappella quartet, in an act of recognition by Holliger who has set 10 mystical epigrams by Angelus Silesius (1624-1677) to music. The constant invention of breath and writing for voice is like a mirror for Silesius’s thoughts.

Vittorio Montalti Tentative d’épuisement, Cursus 2 premiere
Elliott Carter Mosaic
Heinz Holliger nicht Ichts nicht Nichts*, Puneigä, French premieres
György Ligeti Kammerkonzert

Anu Komsi soprano
Luigi Gaggero cymbalum
EXAUDI*
Ensemble du Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra
Conductors Heinz Holliger, James Weeks
IRCAM Computer Music Design Vittorio Montalti
IRCAM Pedagogical Advisor Mikhail Malt

An IRCAM-Centre Pompidou production in partnership with the Lucerne Festival Academy. With the support of the Sacem (scholarships for young Cursus 2 composers) and Pro Helvetia, Fondation suisse pour la culture.

Composition Workshops

root — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 19:30:00 +0000

The composition workshops are intended for young composers who want to create a new work and take advantage of hands-on work sessions and rehearsals, as well as the experience and advice of guest composers and performers throughout the Academy.

Creations by composers from the Composition Workshop for instrumental ensemble and for choir with six voices.

EXAUDI © David Jensen

Valérie Philippin soprano
Ensemble intercontemporain
Conductor Jean Deroyer
EXAUDI
Conductor James Weeks

An IRCAM-Centre Pompidou, Ensemble intercontemporain, the ensemble associated with the ManiFeste-2013 academy coproduction. IRCAM and the CENTQUATRE are partners for experimental performance projects. With the support of the Ulysses network, European network for young creation, supported by the European Commission Culture program. With the support of the Fondation Orange, the FCM – Fonds pour la Création Musicale, Diaphonique, fonds franco-britannique pour la musique contemporaine and the Sacem.

Hannigan – Diotima

root — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 20:30:00 +0000

“The voice is everything.” This cry by Philippe Schœller, that could be tuned to Nono’s music, says everything about nature and language, about archaism and the vocal icon, the irreducible instrument. Operspective Hölderlin performed by Barbara Hannigan and the Diotima perfect the series with electronics initiated in Feuillages and Vertigo, with their proliferations of spatial perspectives.

Operspective forebodes an operatic time, sustained by a grand orchestra (see the concert June 7). Perspectives sur Hölderlin in the direct vicinity of Nono? Phillipe Schœller calls upon the poet and the “essential fraternity of his word of fire, beneficial and solaire.”

When the voice exits the stage at the Bouffes du Nord a pure quartet remains, that of Alberto Posadas, nearly an hour of memorable incantations and twisting, crossing by propagation, by series, and by auto-similarity, like a natural organism.

Luigi Nono Djamila Boupacha
Philippe Schœller Operspective Hölderlin, commissioned by IRCAM-Centre Pompidou, premiere of the new version
Alberto Posadas Liturgia Fractal

Quatuor Diotima © Molina Visuals

Barbara Hannigan soprano
Quatuor Diotima
IRCAM Computer Music Design Gilbert Nouno

An Ircam-Centre Pompidou, ProQuartet Coproduction, organized with the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord. With the support of the Sacem.

EXAUDI – Ensemble intercontemporain

root — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 20:00:00 +0000

Dominant composer of his generation in Spain, Alberto Posadas leads an imposing work where the unique pungency of details is included in a vision of a whole, often a vision of a tragic and dark painting. Like his teacher, Francisco Guerrero, Posadas uses fractal geometry to create large forms, reiterating a figure on several scales. After Quatre scènes sombres inspired by Goya and Elogio de la sombra for quartet, Posadas has created his Tenebrae on fragments of Novalis, Stefan Georg, and the Bible. Starting with Nietzsche’s The Traveller and His Shadow, Rihm has sketched an inner boundary (Innere Grenze).

Magnus Lindberg © Saara Vuorjoki / Fimic

Magnus Lindberg’s Jubilees provides a brilliant contrast to the other works presented during this evening’s concert. Written for Pierre Boulez’ 75th birthday, lightly ignoring the throes of expressionists, solemn depth.

Magnus Lindberg Jubilees
Alberto Posadas Tenebrae, commissioned by Françoise and Jean-Philippe Billarant, premiere
Wolfgang Rihm Klangbeschreibung II – Innere Grenze

EXAUDI | Ensemble intercontemporain
Conductor François-Xavier Roth
IRCAM Computer Music Design Thomas Goepfer

7pm, Cité de la musique, Médiathèque

Presentation of the concert by Clément Lebrun, musicologist
Free entry upon presentation of a ticket for the evening’s concert.
Reservation required: 01 44 84 44 84

A part of the Biennale d’art vocal. An Ensemble intercontemporain, Cité de la musique, IRCAM-Centre Pompidou coproduction. With the support of the Sacem and Diaphonique, fonds franco-britannique pour la musique contemporaine. Concert broadcast on France Musique on June 24 at 8pm during Les Lundis de la contemporaine.

Aliados (Alliés)

root — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 20:30:00 +0000

An Opera in Real-Time

Premiere. Performance in English and Spanish, French subtitles.

“We’re also very much aware that it’s you who brought democracy to Chile” said Lady Thatcher when she invited the senator Augusto Pinochet to tea in London in 1999, sparing not the slightest compliment for the man who would soon have to stand trial for his crimes. Following the example of Nixon in China by John Adams, the opera Aliados inspired by political history, in this case by the Falklands War in 1982 and the improbable alliance of the Iron Lady, champion of liberalism, with the Chilian general during the Cold War.

Augusto Pinochet et Margaret Thatcher en 1990. © Jones, L.R.C., Sipa

The failing memories of the two aged leaders retired from roles of power, revealing archives, and collective history are at the heart of this project by Sebastian Rivas and Esteban Buch, two Argentineans looking back at a decisive event for their generation and their identity. On the theater stage, designed by Antoine Gindt to look like the set of a television program, reality strikes through visual manipulation and stylized singing. An opera in real-time in every sense of the word; historical time and computer time.

Distribution

Music Sebastian Rivas, commissioned by the French governement | Libretto Esteban Buch | Director Antoine Gindt | Live Production Philippe Béziat | Conductor Léo Warynski

Artistic Collaboration and Assistant Director Élodie Brémaud | Stage Design Élise Capdenat | Lighting Daniel Lévy | Costumes Fanny Brouste | IRCAM Computer Music Design Robin Meier

Nora Petrocenko Lady Margaret Thatcher
Lionel Peintre Général Augusto Pinochet
Mélanie Boisvert The nurse
Thill Mantero The aide-de-camp
Richard Dubelski The conscript

A T&M-Paris, IRCAM-Centre Pompidou, Réseau Varèse coproduction. With the support of the SACD/Fonds de création lyrique, the Théâtre de Gennevilliers/CDNCC and the Théâtre de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines/Scène Nationale.

L’Itinéraire – Les Cris de Paris

root — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 19:30:00 +0000

Placing the work in nature, and nature in the work, creating a musical system based on the space where it will be heard, these are the concerns of Jean-Luc Hervé, associating plant and musical growth. A concert and an invitation to reap in a soundscape in the heart of Paris. The first part of this concert, entrusted to the Cris de Paris, is urban, rhetorical, and theatrical featuring the premiere of a work by Heera Kima and a triptych by Mauro Lanza.

Simultaneously bereavement, anarchy, and celebration, Ludus de Morte Regis is the memory of three anarchists who tried to assassinate the king Umberto 1 at the end of the 19th century. The rebellion of the anarchist Passannante against the king and the state of nature, the insanity of an impossible act, the lunacy of Nietzsche, the crucified signs a letter addressed to Umberto. A great number of extreme and burlesque movements can be found in this work that is a “state of exception”.

Heera Kim Things We Said Today, premiere Cursus 2
Mauro Lanza Ludus de Morte Regis, commissioned by Les Cris de Paris as a part of “Identité et Environnement Sonore”, premiere
Jean-Luc Hervé Germination*, commissioned by the French government, premiere

Conductor Jean Deroyer, Geoffroy Jourdain
IRCAM Computer Music Design Gilbert Nouno, Manuel Poletti, Heera Kim, Serge Lemouton*
IRCAM Pedagogical Advisors Éric Daubresse
Landscape Artist, stage design consultant Astrid Verspieren*

An IRCAM-Centre Pompidou, L’Itinéraire, and Les Cris de Paris coproduction. With the support of the Sacem (scholarships for Cursus 2 composers). In collaboration with the École Du Breuil, school of landscape art and techniques, establishment managed by the City of Paris*.

6:30pm, IRCAM, Igor-Stravinsky Room

Screening of the film “Images of a work n°16: Germination, by Jean-Luc Hervé”, written and produced by Philippe Langlois and Christian Bahier. Free entry upon presentation of a ticket for the evening’s concert.

Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France

root — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 20:00:00 +0000

The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Jukka-Pekka Saraste honor Henri Dutilleux in this evening’s concert.

An operatic air breezes through this concert conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste, present until the third symphony by Lutoslawski, a vehement and dramatic masterpiece completed in 1983 after years of preparation. Philippe Schœller chose the typically romantic formation of the Lied with Orchestra (e.g. Mahler, Strauss) for a work that promises to be like a futuristic opera, La légende d’Esstal. The orchestral composition of these lieder uses the writing for electronic instruments of Operspective Hölderlin, also dedicated to the soloist Barbara Hannigan.

The work by Carmine Emanuele Cella – researcher, mathematician, composer, and winner of the 2012 ManiFeste academy – is the intimate connection between electronics and orchestra. Using the allegory of Plato’s cave, he places two worlds together; the first is instrumental, representing the imperfect shadow of the second, a pure idea of electronic sound.

Carmine Emanuele Cella (ManiFeste-2012 academy winner) Reflets de l’ombre, commissioned by IRCAM and Radio France, premiere
Philippe Schœller Trois grands lieder, commissioned by Radio France, premiere
Witold Lutoslawski Symphonie n° 3
Henri Dutilleux Métaboles

Barbara Hannigan © Elmer de Haas

Distribution

Barbara Hannigan soprano
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste
IRCAM Computer Music Design Carlo Laurenzi

A Radio France, Ircam-Centre Pompidou coproduction. With the support of the Sacem. Concert broadcast live on France Musique.

Scardanelli

root — Thu, 30 May 2013 20:00:00 +0000

Locked in his tower in Tübingen and in the insanity that marked the second half of his life, Friedrich Hölderlin wrote strange poems under several pseudonyms, including that of Scardanelli. Hölderlin gave implausible dates to these writings as well. The ultimate experience Hölderlin’s poetry describes a voyage beyond time and invisibility. The large Scardanelli-Zyklus project that the composer Heinz Holliger worked on from 1975 to 1993 is a unique experience in 20th century music, an inexorable journal.

Three circles are organized: Seasons for mixed chorus, Exercises on Scardanelli for small orchestra and tape. Finally a series for flute, including the unique (t)air(e) that leads to the psychological limits of the performer, Ad Marginem, one of the works inspired by a Paul Klee painting that provides a key to Scardanelli: the vanishing margins of perception, here ultra-grave and mid-high sounds, is the expression of complete loneliness and oddity. As noted by Schumann, compositional brother of Hölderlin and Holliger, it is “torn to the very roots of existence”.

Heinz Holliger Scardanelli-Zyklus

Sophie Cherrier flute
Choeur de la Radio lettone
Ensemble intercontemporain
Conductor Heinz Holliger
Magnetic Tape Nicolas Berteloot

7pm, Cité de la musique, Médiathèque

Presentation of the concert by Clément Lebrun, musicologist
Free entry upon presentation of a ticket for the evening’s concert.
Reservation required: 01 44 84 44 84

A part of the Biennale d’art vocal.
A Cité de la musique, Ensemble intercontemporain, IRCAM-Centre Pompidou coproduction. With the support of Pro Helvetia-Fondation suisse pour la culture and the Sacem. Concert broadcast live on France Musique

Barbara Hannigan

root — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:00:08 +0000

Born and brought up in Canada, the soprano Barbara Hannigan received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the University of Toronto, where she studied with Mary Morrison. She continued her studies at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with Meinard Kraak, and privately with Neil Semer.

A frequent guest of the Berlin Philharmonic, she has also performed with most of the other leading orchestras and ensembles on both sides of the Atlantic, and with conductors including Simon Rattle, Pierre Boulez, Reinbert de Leeuw, Vladimir Jurowski, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Alan Gilbert, and Jukka-Pekka Saraste. She made her conducting debut at the Châtelet in Paris, with Stravinsky’s Renard in 2010. Her most recent and upcoming engagements include concerts with the WDR, the Sainte Cécile Academy, and the Gothenburg Symphony. Much sought after in contemporary music, she has given over 75 world premieres.

Her operatic repertory includes the role of Agnès in Written on Skin by George Benjamin, which premiered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in July 2012 before being performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Lulu by Berg at the Monnaie de Bruxelles. She sang the title role in Stravinsky’s opera Le Rossignol, Gepopo/Venus in Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, Armida in Haendel’s Rinaldo, and will perform the roles of Donna Anna, Melisande, and Marie (Die Soldaten). Mysteries of the Macabre, a tour de force for soprano and orchestra, has become a signature work, which she has sung – and sometimes also conducted- at Lincoln Center, Disney Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, at the Théâtre du Châtelet, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, and at the Salzburg Festival.

Barbara Hannigan is also well known for her talent in programming. She was the co-curator of the recent festival “The Rest is Noise” at Southbank Centre, based on the eponymous book by Alex Ross. In 2011, she began an exceptional European tour of Boulez’ Pli selon pli under the baton of the composer.

Chorégraphie d’un chant

root — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:14:50 +0000

Entretien avec Barbara Hannigan

Comment devient-on une chanteuse telle que vous, avec autant d’intérêt, d’outils et de volonté de défendre la musique d’aujourd’hui ?

Ma professeure au Conservatoire de Toronto a certainement joué un grand rôle dans cette direction qu’a pris ma carrière. Elle savait que je m’ennuierais à mourir si elle ne me faisait chanter que du Schubert et du Mozart. Elle m’a donc conseillé d’aller à la bibliothèque, d’emprunter des partitions et de les étudier, l’une après l’autre. Du reste, peut-être ma curiosité vient-elle aussi du fait que, à cet âge-là, je n’avais justement pas ce bagage schubertien et mozartien – je ne connaissais pas non plus que Mahler, Boulez ou Ligeti. Je viens de Nouvelle-Écosse, d’un village avec moins de cinq cents habitants. On n’y écoutait pas réellement de musique classique. Quand je suis arrivée à dix-sept ans à Toronto, c’est comme si tout un monde s’ouvrait à moi.

Comment travaille-t-on un répertoire aussi ardu, qui s’éloigne toujours plus de la voix « classique » ?

Les chanteurs ne peuvent travailler à pleine voix toute la journée : il faut ménager sa voix. Je travaille donc le plus souvent sur table, en silence. J’imagine l’œuvre, la ligne de chant. J’essaie de tout visualiser : non pas seulement la courbe d’une mélodie ou un saut d’intervalle, mais tout ce qui est sollicité par le chant : les muscles, les sensations de vibration. Je visualise la forme que prendra mon palais pour rendre tel passage, ce que fera ma langue, comment je respirerai, comment je sentirai ma mâchoire… C’est exactement la même gymnastique intellectuelle que celle d’un plongeur, qui visualise sa figure alors qu’il est encore debout sur le plongeoir. Ou celle d’un danseur, qui repasse une chorégraphie entière dans sa tête.

De manière presque concomitante avec votre prise de rôle de Lulu à la Monnaie de Bruxelles, vous avez collaboré avec George Benjamin sur son opéra Written on Skin : comment vous êtes-vous appropriée le rôle ?

J’ai rencontré George Benjamin quelque temps avant qu’il se mette au travail. Il connaissait déjà ma voix, et nous nous sommes ménagés un peu de temps pour faire la musique ensemble, chez lui. Nous avons joué les Sept lieder de jeunesse de Berg, nous avons parlé ambitus, tessiture, confort de voix. Quand la partition m’est parvenue, scène après scène, ma première réaction a été la surprise. Cela n’avait rien d’un rôle virtuose. C’était lyrique, avec quelques notes haut perchées, mais, à première vue, relativement modeste. Ce n’est que pendant les répétitions, et surtout à partir du moment où nous avons travaillé en scène sous la direction de Katie Mitchell, que j’ai commencé à appréhender l’intensité et le poids du rôle. Les lignes étaient tendues, les phrases longues. Ces notes tenues dans l’aigu exigeaient des efforts très différents des passages coloratures qu’on me demande habituellement. Le rôle était celui d’une femme sérieuse et grave, et j’ai beaucoup aimé cet aspect-là. Nous n’avons presque rien changé.

Pendant le festival ManiFeste-2013, vous chanterez deux œuvres de Philippe Schœller. Il nous dit lui-même à votre sujet : « La rencontre avec cette artiste exceptionnelle qu’est Barbara Hannigan est la source de l’invention poétique et artistique de ce diptyque, ici Operspective Hölderlin, là Three Songs from Esstal. » Que répondriez-vous à cela ? Comment devient-on la « muse » d’un compositeur ?

Philippe Schœller est un compositeur singulier – certainement un original. Je suis toujours fascinée par le mystère qui se dégage de ses partitions complexes. Les compositeurs connaissent mon engagement de longue haleine pour le répertoire contemporain, et savent que l’on peut me faire confiance. Je ferai tout pour comprendre de la manière la plus approfondie possible ce qu’ils ont essayé de transmettre au travers de leur musique.

Comment choisissez-vous les œuvres que vous créez – est-ce une question d’esthétique ? De relation humaine ? Un projet séduisant ? Ou peut-être, une question de voix ?

Je n’ai pas de recette. Les compositeurs que j’aime sont très différents : Ligeti, Dutilleux, Boulez, Dusapin, Barry, Benjamin, Schœller – rien que dans cette courte liste, il y a déjà un panel esthétique très varié. Je refuse bien des offres, car je ne ressens aucune familiarité avec la partition qu’on me demande de chanter. Je recherche un certain équilibre entre la puissance de la vision intellectuelle et la force dramatique et émotionnelle. Le pourcentage peut varier d’une pièce à l’autre, mais les deux aspects doivent être présents. C’est aussi une affaire de goût, d’architecture de la partition ou du rôle, et du choix des textes. Je suppose que la décision vient de mon propre instinct – la seule chose à laquelle je puisse me fier.