here.here with the Gildas Quartet (31/10/2019)
Gildas Quartet play Janacek, Crumb, Whalley & Waeckerle.
A night of graphic notation, extended scores, sounding images and live composition.
Iklectik London Thurs 31st/10/2019 7.30pm
The London based Gildas Quartet are the fourth guests of a series of streamed concerts taking place at IKLECTIK in London and at UCA in Farnham. The other concerts this year were Marcus Kaiser (1st/2nd May 2019), Stefan Thut (10/11 April 2019), Jessica Aslan and Emma Lloyd (13 March 2019).
Over Head Projection (live composition) (2019) – Harry Whalley
Black Angels(1971)– George Crumb
Quartet 2, ‘Intimate Letters’(1928) – Leoš Janácek
A few birds and dreaming(2019) – Emmanuelle Waeckerlé
Recorded live stream of A few birds and dreaming and Over Head Projection here
The line between composition and improvisation is explored in Harry Whalley’s exciting use a pen, paper and an overhead projector. In Over Head Projection, the composer, performers and audience start with a blank page; and follow together as a compositional form and improvisational spaces are merged. “Thirteen Images from the Dark Land”, the subtitle of George Crumb’s seminal work Black Angels for amplified or electronic string quartet, gives a clue to the numerology and complex score world that Crumb has created. In this concert the audience shall be made privy to those esoteric scores through projections. The intimate letters between Leoš Janáček and Kamila Stösslová form the basis of his powerful second quartet.“You stand behind every note, you, living, forceful, loving. The fragrance of your body, the glow of your kisses – no, really of mine. Those notes of mine kiss all of you. They call for you passionately…“. A few birds and dreaming by Emmanuelle Waeckerlé invites the performers and audience to ‘breathe’, to sound(ing) images and moving stills. They offer a silent image of the world, sound has been exiled from them.
Gildas Quartet
Christopher Jones (violin), Gemma Sharples (violin), Kay Stephen (violin), Anna Menzies (cello)
The Gildas Quartet have performed to critical acclaim at major venues including the Bridgewater Hall, Purcell Room, Wigmore Hall, and on BBC Radio 3. Praised for their ‘energy, verve and refreshing approach’, their bold and explorative approach to performance has been recognised by the International Franz Schubert and Modern Music Competition, Graz, where they were first prize winners of the Audience Engagement Award in 2018.
here.here Gildas Quartet Press Release
Harry Whalley ‘s Over Head Projection (2019) recording here
Emmanuelle Waeckerlé’s A few birds and dreaming (2019) recording here
The here.here concert series, is a collaboration between bookRoom and the Audio Research Cluster at UCA Farnham, curated by Emmanuelle Waeckerlé and Harry Whalley, aroun their common research in extended, textual, visual, gestural and object scores and ways to integrate or experience technology in text/music/film/performances. The project is supported by UCA research fund.