ARCHIV
11.11.2004 20:00 Bern, Konservatorium
12.11.2004 20:00 Basel, Gare du Nord
Hwang-Long Pan Taiwan (1945)
LABYRINTH - PROMENADE
for sextett (1998/2000)
Britta Byström Sweden
STRAPATS
(1977) for sextett (2002)
Mauricio Rodriguez Mexico (1976)
SIGNANS ONIRICUM
for chamber ensemble (2002)
Kee-Yong Chong Malaysia (1971)
MOURNING THE MURDER OF AN OLD BAYAN TREE
for chamber ensemble (2002)
Friedrich Jaecker (1950)Germany
LÄNDLER
for chamber ensemble (2001)
ensemble für neue musik zürich
Hans-Peter Frehner, flute
Hansruedi Bissegger, clarinet
Christoph Luchsinger, trumpet
Viktor Müller Klavier
Lorenz Haas und Ivan Manzanilla, percussion
Urs Bumbacher, violin
Daniel Hess, viola
Stefan Thut, violoncello
Sebastian Gottschick, conductor
Kee-Yong Chong
Born 1971in Johor, Malaysia. He studied music theory and composition at the Malaysian Institute of Performing Arts Kuala Lumpur (1990-93) where he was later (1995-97) invited to teach music theory and composition. In 1995, he obtained the Bachelor of Art at Xi'an Conservatory of Music (China), under Da-Long Zhang and Yu-Yan Rao. Since 1997, he has continued studies at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel under Jan Van Landeghem. In 2001, he attended the electro-acoustic music class of Peter Swinnen. In June 2001, he obtained his master of composition with greatest distinction from the Royal Flemish Conservatory of Music of Brussels. He participated in many courses and compositions seminars and received several awards. Currently, he works as a freelance composer in Brussels. (The voyage of) Kee-Yong CHONG was sponsored and made possible by Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage of Malaysia.
MOURNING THE MURDER OF AN OLD BAYAN TREE
Long time ago, I read a poem „Balade Terbunuhnya Beringin Tua Di Sebuah Bandaraya“ by a Malaysian poet Dato Usman Awang, and this poem let me keep thinking of what the civilization brought effort to us, and in the same time it also destroy so much things from us! I’m very afraid of losing our tradition, our culture, our language, our environment, our planet….etc, because of the unavoidable idea of development and improvement of life. In the Buddhist idiom the Banyan tree represents a consciousness of intelligence and consciousness of way.
Fragment from the poem „Balade Terbunuhnya Beringin Tua Di Sebuah Bandaraya“ by Dato Usman Awang (A ballad mourning the murder of an old Banyan tree in a city):
Sampai sekarang, tiap senjakala lembayung petang
Dengarlah suara Beringin mengucapkan pesan:
Selamat tinggal, selamat tinggal wahai awan
Selamat tinggal matari selamat tinggal bulan
Selamat tinggal, kupu-kupu sayang
Selamat tinggal, wahai burung-burung bersarang
Selamat tinggal anak-anak bermain riang
Namaku Beringin pohon tua yang terbuang
Dimusuhi oleh rancangan bernama Pembangunan
To this day, when twilight graces the sky
You can hear the old banyan tree’s farewell:
Goodbye, goodbye cloud
Goodbye sun, goodbye moon
Goodbye dear butterflies
Goodbye nesting birds
Goodbye frolicking children
It was old Banyan tree cast inside
By an enemy called Development.
This work was commissioned by „Het Collectief“ with funds provided by Vlaamse Gemeenschap and first performed by this ensemble to which I dedicate the work. I rearranged a second version for flute, clarinet, piano, violin, violoncello and percussion.
Britta Byström
Born 1977, she studied composition at the Royal University of Music in Stockholm 1995-2001. Her teachers were Pär Lindgren and Bent Sørensen. She has mainly composed orchestral music, but also chamber- and choir pieces, and her chamber opera IF YOU’VE LOST YOUR BAGGAGE was recently played on tour in Sweden. Byström’s music has been performed by the Swedish Radio Orchestra, the International Youth Wind Orchestra, the Stockholm Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the percussion ensemble Kroumata and many others. She has won prizes in several competitions, and her piece BARCAROLE represented Sweden at ROSTRUM 2001.
compo@telia.com
STRAPATS(2002)
STRAPATS (hardship) is a musical expedition of somewhat adventurous character. It is written for six instruments: clarinet, piccola trumpet, violin, viola, percussion and piano. The ensemble passes through different landscapes of sound; sometimes united, sometimes scattered – but always moving in the same direction. The connection to transit seems obvious since my piece is a kind of musical journey. Furthermore, the ensemble itself can be regarded as a small group of transit passengers, travelling between a conventional chamber ensemble and a full orchestra. Each instrument is representing a group of orchestral instruments; the ensemble can be looked upon as being sent out on a mission from the traditional orchestra.
Friedrich Jaecker
Born in Soest (Germany) in 1950. He studied in Detmold and Hamburg (with György Ligeti) and in 1980 was appointed Professor at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. He wrote works for solo instruments, ensemble, orchestra and music theater. Friedrich Jaecker has received a number of prizes for his compositions, amongst them the Stuttgarter Förderpreis for the orchestra piece TURMALIN (1984) and the Daimler Chrysler scholarship of the Casa di Goethe in Rome for ATEM for 16 voices (2003). Two portrait CDs of chamber music and ensemble pieces appeared in 1998 and 2000.
friedrich.jaecker@gmx.de
LÄNDLER (2001)
LÄNDLER is my look at Franz Schubert, particularly at a small piano piece which - on the face of it being completely unspectacular, almost paltry -unites enormous beauty with deep sorrow. The emotional density I experience by listening to Schubert is expressed in LÄNDLER by using extreme levels, instrumental colours and measures. Through free association, situations from Schubert’s piece are lightly stroked by listening, and yet, LÄNDLER is - more than I would have admitted to myself - a succession of four variations proportionally related to each other with a closing theme. In such a penetration the border between the centuries is thus cleared, yet without stopping to exist.
LÄNDLER (2001)
LÄNDLER ist mein Blick auf Franz Schubert, insbesondere auf ein kleines Klavierstück, das - äusserlich völlig unspektakulär, ja geradezu ärmlich - tiefe Schönheit und bodenlose Trauer in sich vereint. Die emotionale Dichte, die ich bei Schubert erlebe, äussert sich in LÄNDLER durch extreme Lagen, Klangfarben und Zeitmasse. Frei assoziativ werden Situationen aus Schuberts Stück hörend ertastet, und doch ist LÄNDLER - mehr, als ich es eigentlich mir zugestehen wollte - eine Folge von vier proportional aufeinander bezogenen Variationen mit abschliessendem Thema. In solcher Durchdringung wird die Grenze zwischen den Jahrhunderten überschritten, ohne dass sie jedoch aufhört zu existieren.
Mauricio Rodríguez
Born 1976, he studied his bachelor in Composition from 1994 to 2000 year at the Laboratory of Musical Creation led by Julio Estrada at The National School of Music from The National University of Mexico (UNAM) doing at the same time piano and ethnomusicology studies. Currently he is studying the masters in Sonology and Composition with Konrad Bohemer and Clarence Barlow at the Royal Conservatory Den Haag. As a composer and player he has participated in important festivals of New Music such as the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt 1998 and 2000. He has received several scholarships, awards and distinctions. His musical writing is influenced by processes of graphical representation, by a multiparametric conception of sound and musical structure, by technical resources of electronic music and by experimentation as a fundamental method of construction.
mauritiusnon@hotmail.com
SIGNANS ONIRICUM (2002)
SIGNANS ONIRICUM is a piece constructed with several musical gestures which are conceived as entities. The entity term comes from the mathematical language and it is used here to handle the constant transformations or permutations which are produced on the instrumental timbre which changes through the modification of some dynamics leveles rhythmically controlled. The gestures are basically conformed by four layers, so that, the whole cycle of permutations is completed through the mathematical expression of 4! (that means 1*2*3*4 = 24). This process of construction could be thought as a geometrical structure whose permutations produced variations or better said, transitions from one state to another one. It is like if music constantly transits from one perspective (from the geometrical frame) to another one, while it is explored all the possible angles from the structure. It is somehow like a "topological variation" - a music term proposed by Julio Estrada - represented in this music on its timbral and dynamic transitions. When a permutation is made into the entity one only element is positioned in a new place and the rest remain without alteration:
Identity: (a, b, c, d)
One possible permutation: (d, a, b, c)
The transition between both identity versions happens through the minimum operation, to say, one change at once, which is too continuous, too transitional. When the total number of permutations is completed the work is auto-inhibited and it could not continue anymore.
Hwang-Long Pan
Born in Taiwan in 1945 and graduated from National Taiwan Normal University in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts in music. In 1974 Pan entered the Musikhochschule in Zurich to study composition with Hans Ulrich Lehmann and theory and counterpoint with Robert Blum. After graduating in 1976, he studied composition with Helmut Lachenmann at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover and from 1978 to 1980, with Isang Yun at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin. In 1982 he returned to Taiwan and became associate professor at the National Institute of the Arts in Taipei. He has been a professor of composition since 1991, director of research and development center from 1998 to 1999, Dean of Student Affairs from 2000 to 2002 and was elected Dean of College of Music in year 2002 at the Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA). Pan is active in several prestigious music associations. He has been a member of the Music Committee of the Council for Cultural Affair, which is the highest cultural policymaking organization in Taiwan. He is the founding president of the International Society for Contemporary Music (Taiwan Section), juror on the Advisory Committee of the National Theater and Concert Hall in Taipei and art director of "Music Taipei Composition Competition".
hlpan@music.tnua.edu.tw
LABYRINTH - PROMENADE, Sextet for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin and violoncello (1998/2000)
This work consists of twenty-six segments set in alphabetical order. However, Mobile Form notation has been adopted, with the result that its form and playing length are not fixed. The performer is free to choose one of the following methods of organization:
- arrangement of the order prior to the performance based on personal choice;
- arrangement following the order of letters in the words of a short poem or an article from a newspaper or a magazine;
- improvisation during the performance.
Any one of the twenty-six segments may be repeated up to three (or two) times or omitted altogether. If the second method is chosen, segments corresponding to letters in the poem or article that have already been used three (or two) times will be thereafter considered for omission. If the performer selects the first or the third method, not more than five of the segments can be omitted. Originally, the segments were written for solo performance, but the creative conception, harmonic structure, and unique musical form that they share in common also allow them to be transformed into chamber music.
12.11.2004 20:00 Basel, Gare du Nord
Hwang-Long Pan Taiwan (1945)
LABYRINTH - PROMENADE
for sextett (1998/2000)
Britta Byström Sweden
STRAPATS
(1977) for sextett (2002)
Mauricio Rodriguez Mexico (1976)
SIGNANS ONIRICUM
for chamber ensemble (2002)
Kee-Yong Chong Malaysia (1971)
MOURNING THE MURDER OF AN OLD BAYAN TREE
for chamber ensemble (2002)
Friedrich Jaecker (1950)Germany
LÄNDLER
for chamber ensemble (2001)
ensemble für neue musik zürich
Hans-Peter Frehner, flute
Hansruedi Bissegger, clarinet
Christoph Luchsinger, trumpet
Viktor Müller Klavier
Lorenz Haas und Ivan Manzanilla, percussion
Urs Bumbacher, violin
Daniel Hess, viola
Stefan Thut, violoncello
Sebastian Gottschick, conductor
Kee-Yong Chong
Born 1971in Johor, Malaysia. He studied music theory and composition at the Malaysian Institute of Performing Arts Kuala Lumpur (1990-93) where he was later (1995-97) invited to teach music theory and composition. In 1995, he obtained the Bachelor of Art at Xi'an Conservatory of Music (China), under Da-Long Zhang and Yu-Yan Rao. Since 1997, he has continued studies at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel under Jan Van Landeghem. In 2001, he attended the electro-acoustic music class of Peter Swinnen. In June 2001, he obtained his master of composition with greatest distinction from the Royal Flemish Conservatory of Music of Brussels. He participated in many courses and compositions seminars and received several awards. Currently, he works as a freelance composer in Brussels. (The voyage of) Kee-Yong CHONG was sponsored and made possible by Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage of Malaysia.
MOURNING THE MURDER OF AN OLD BAYAN TREE
Long time ago, I read a poem „Balade Terbunuhnya Beringin Tua Di Sebuah Bandaraya“ by a Malaysian poet Dato Usman Awang, and this poem let me keep thinking of what the civilization brought effort to us, and in the same time it also destroy so much things from us! I’m very afraid of losing our tradition, our culture, our language, our environment, our planet….etc, because of the unavoidable idea of development and improvement of life. In the Buddhist idiom the Banyan tree represents a consciousness of intelligence and consciousness of way.
Fragment from the poem „Balade Terbunuhnya Beringin Tua Di Sebuah Bandaraya“ by Dato Usman Awang (A ballad mourning the murder of an old Banyan tree in a city):
Sampai sekarang, tiap senjakala lembayung petang
Dengarlah suara Beringin mengucapkan pesan:
Selamat tinggal, selamat tinggal wahai awan
Selamat tinggal matari selamat tinggal bulan
Selamat tinggal, kupu-kupu sayang
Selamat tinggal, wahai burung-burung bersarang
Selamat tinggal anak-anak bermain riang
Namaku Beringin pohon tua yang terbuang
Dimusuhi oleh rancangan bernama Pembangunan
To this day, when twilight graces the sky
You can hear the old banyan tree’s farewell:
Goodbye, goodbye cloud
Goodbye sun, goodbye moon
Goodbye dear butterflies
Goodbye nesting birds
Goodbye frolicking children
It was old Banyan tree cast inside
By an enemy called Development.
This work was commissioned by „Het Collectief“ with funds provided by Vlaamse Gemeenschap and first performed by this ensemble to which I dedicate the work. I rearranged a second version for flute, clarinet, piano, violin, violoncello and percussion.
Britta Byström
Born 1977, she studied composition at the Royal University of Music in Stockholm 1995-2001. Her teachers were Pär Lindgren and Bent Sørensen. She has mainly composed orchestral music, but also chamber- and choir pieces, and her chamber opera IF YOU’VE LOST YOUR BAGGAGE was recently played on tour in Sweden. Byström’s music has been performed by the Swedish Radio Orchestra, the International Youth Wind Orchestra, the Stockholm Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the percussion ensemble Kroumata and many others. She has won prizes in several competitions, and her piece BARCAROLE represented Sweden at ROSTRUM 2001.
compo@telia.com
STRAPATS(2002)
STRAPATS (hardship) is a musical expedition of somewhat adventurous character. It is written for six instruments: clarinet, piccola trumpet, violin, viola, percussion and piano. The ensemble passes through different landscapes of sound; sometimes united, sometimes scattered – but always moving in the same direction. The connection to transit seems obvious since my piece is a kind of musical journey. Furthermore, the ensemble itself can be regarded as a small group of transit passengers, travelling between a conventional chamber ensemble and a full orchestra. Each instrument is representing a group of orchestral instruments; the ensemble can be looked upon as being sent out on a mission from the traditional orchestra.
Friedrich Jaecker
Born in Soest (Germany) in 1950. He studied in Detmold and Hamburg (with György Ligeti) and in 1980 was appointed Professor at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. He wrote works for solo instruments, ensemble, orchestra and music theater. Friedrich Jaecker has received a number of prizes for his compositions, amongst them the Stuttgarter Förderpreis for the orchestra piece TURMALIN (1984) and the Daimler Chrysler scholarship of the Casa di Goethe in Rome for ATEM for 16 voices (2003). Two portrait CDs of chamber music and ensemble pieces appeared in 1998 and 2000.
friedrich.jaecker@gmx.de
LÄNDLER (2001)
LÄNDLER is my look at Franz Schubert, particularly at a small piano piece which - on the face of it being completely unspectacular, almost paltry -unites enormous beauty with deep sorrow. The emotional density I experience by listening to Schubert is expressed in LÄNDLER by using extreme levels, instrumental colours and measures. Through free association, situations from Schubert’s piece are lightly stroked by listening, and yet, LÄNDLER is - more than I would have admitted to myself - a succession of four variations proportionally related to each other with a closing theme. In such a penetration the border between the centuries is thus cleared, yet without stopping to exist.
LÄNDLER (2001)
LÄNDLER ist mein Blick auf Franz Schubert, insbesondere auf ein kleines Klavierstück, das - äusserlich völlig unspektakulär, ja geradezu ärmlich - tiefe Schönheit und bodenlose Trauer in sich vereint. Die emotionale Dichte, die ich bei Schubert erlebe, äussert sich in LÄNDLER durch extreme Lagen, Klangfarben und Zeitmasse. Frei assoziativ werden Situationen aus Schuberts Stück hörend ertastet, und doch ist LÄNDLER - mehr, als ich es eigentlich mir zugestehen wollte - eine Folge von vier proportional aufeinander bezogenen Variationen mit abschliessendem Thema. In solcher Durchdringung wird die Grenze zwischen den Jahrhunderten überschritten, ohne dass sie jedoch aufhört zu existieren.
Mauricio Rodríguez
Born 1976, he studied his bachelor in Composition from 1994 to 2000 year at the Laboratory of Musical Creation led by Julio Estrada at The National School of Music from The National University of Mexico (UNAM) doing at the same time piano and ethnomusicology studies. Currently he is studying the masters in Sonology and Composition with Konrad Bohemer and Clarence Barlow at the Royal Conservatory Den Haag. As a composer and player he has participated in important festivals of New Music such as the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt 1998 and 2000. He has received several scholarships, awards and distinctions. His musical writing is influenced by processes of graphical representation, by a multiparametric conception of sound and musical structure, by technical resources of electronic music and by experimentation as a fundamental method of construction.
mauritiusnon@hotmail.com
SIGNANS ONIRICUM (2002)
SIGNANS ONIRICUM is a piece constructed with several musical gestures which are conceived as entities. The entity term comes from the mathematical language and it is used here to handle the constant transformations or permutations which are produced on the instrumental timbre which changes through the modification of some dynamics leveles rhythmically controlled. The gestures are basically conformed by four layers, so that, the whole cycle of permutations is completed through the mathematical expression of 4! (that means 1*2*3*4 = 24). This process of construction could be thought as a geometrical structure whose permutations produced variations or better said, transitions from one state to another one. It is like if music constantly transits from one perspective (from the geometrical frame) to another one, while it is explored all the possible angles from the structure. It is somehow like a "topological variation" - a music term proposed by Julio Estrada - represented in this music on its timbral and dynamic transitions. When a permutation is made into the entity one only element is positioned in a new place and the rest remain without alteration:
Identity: (a, b, c, d)
One possible permutation: (d, a, b, c)
The transition between both identity versions happens through the minimum operation, to say, one change at once, which is too continuous, too transitional. When the total number of permutations is completed the work is auto-inhibited and it could not continue anymore.
Hwang-Long Pan
Born in Taiwan in 1945 and graduated from National Taiwan Normal University in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts in music. In 1974 Pan entered the Musikhochschule in Zurich to study composition with Hans Ulrich Lehmann and theory and counterpoint with Robert Blum. After graduating in 1976, he studied composition with Helmut Lachenmann at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover and from 1978 to 1980, with Isang Yun at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin. In 1982 he returned to Taiwan and became associate professor at the National Institute of the Arts in Taipei. He has been a professor of composition since 1991, director of research and development center from 1998 to 1999, Dean of Student Affairs from 2000 to 2002 and was elected Dean of College of Music in year 2002 at the Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA). Pan is active in several prestigious music associations. He has been a member of the Music Committee of the Council for Cultural Affair, which is the highest cultural policymaking organization in Taiwan. He is the founding president of the International Society for Contemporary Music (Taiwan Section), juror on the Advisory Committee of the National Theater and Concert Hall in Taipei and art director of "Music Taipei Composition Competition".
hlpan@music.tnua.edu.tw
LABYRINTH - PROMENADE, Sextet for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin and violoncello (1998/2000)
This work consists of twenty-six segments set in alphabetical order. However, Mobile Form notation has been adopted, with the result that its form and playing length are not fixed. The performer is free to choose one of the following methods of organization:
- arrangement of the order prior to the performance based on personal choice;
- arrangement following the order of letters in the words of a short poem or an article from a newspaper or a magazine;
- improvisation during the performance.
Any one of the twenty-six segments may be repeated up to three (or two) times or omitted altogether. If the second method is chosen, segments corresponding to letters in the poem or article that have already been used three (or two) times will be thereafter considered for omission. If the performer selects the first or the third method, not more than five of the segments can be omitted. Originally, the segments were written for solo performance, but the creative conception, harmonic structure, and unique musical form that they share in common also allow them to be transformed into chamber music.
