The Annual Ensemble Π Peace Concert: Can You Hear That?
New York, NY—The acclaimed new music collective Ensemble Π returns to The Cooper Union’s Great Hall for its annual peace concert, Saturday, March 7 at 7pm. Highlights include South African composer Philip Miller’s reflection on the Iraq War, Can You Hear That?, Norwegian-American soprano/composer Kristin Norderval’s moving setting of poems by Mahmoud Darwish and Timothy Donnelly, Elegy, and Krzysztof Penderecki’s masterpiece, Sextet. The evening will also feature performances of Berlin-based Austrian composer Peter Ablinger’s Lech Walesa and Benjamin Britten’s Canticle III.
Co-presented by Cooper Union, Ensemble Π‘s concert, Can You Hear That?, is part of an annual series launched by the ensemble in 2005 and featuring politically evocative and lyrically compelling works from around the world, written in response to war and oppression. The concert will take place on March 7th at 7pm at The Great Hall of Cooper Union, located at 7 East 7th Street at Third Avenue, NYC. Free.
The concert includes the world premiere of Can You Hear That? (2009) by Philip Miller – best known for his decade-long collaboration with artist William Kentridge. Commissioned by Ensemble Π and scored for mezzo, tenor and chamber ensemble, Can You Hear That! consists of three parts and uses text from Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris’s book, The Ballad of Abu Ghraib/Standard Operating Procedure. “Tahrir: Can You Hear That?” incorporates recorded samples of tinnitus, a ringing noise heard in the ears or head, which has affected more than 70% of the soldiers returning from Iraq. “Matan: Talking about Sabrina” juxtaposes the worlds of soldier Sabrina Harman and detainee Hajah Ali who came in contact with her. “Tasliim: The President didn’t know” deals with music as a tool of torture, combining Bush’s speech declaring the invasion of Iraq with looped sounds of video games and the words of an Iraqi detainee describing this form of torture.
Composer/soprano Kristin Norderval, profiled by The New York Times in “Downtown Divas Expand their Horizons”, and hailed as one of “new music’s best” by The Village Voice, will appear in the world premiere of her own composition, Elegy (2009). Commissioned by Ensemble Pi, the work is a setting of Timothy Donnelly’s poem Claire de Lune, with excerpts from A State of Siege, written by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) during the 2002 Israeli siege of the city of Ramallah. Scored for voice, electronics and the instrumentalists of Ensemble Pi, mixing both acoustic and electronically processed sounds and featuring a video component by Katherine Liberovskaya, Elegy is a poignant commemoration of the deaths in Gaza.
One of Poland’s foremost contemporary composers, Krzysztof Penderecki is internationally renowned for large-scale and often dark-hued works, such as the frightening Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima of 1960. The intensely dramatic Sextet (2000) is undoubtedly one of his most important chamber works to date. Scored for piano, violin, viola, cello, clarinet and horn, it was premiered in Vienna (Musikverein) in June 2002.
Lech Walesa, for piano and tape, is part of Peter Ablinger’s ongoing series, Voices and Piano (1998-), in which the composer takes speeches of well-known figures and creates an exacting piano accompaniment that reinforces the fundamental pitch found in the particular speaker’s voice.
Benjamin Britten’s Canticle III sets Edith Sitwell’s dark poem, Still Falls the Rain, in which remembrances of the London raids of 1940 are combined with the passion of Christ. About this Canticle, Britten confided that the “deeply moving text enabled him at last [to] get away from the immediate impacts of war and write about it.”
Performers include Monique Buzzarté, trombone; Karl Kramer, horn; Idith Meshulam, piano; Scott Murphree, tenor; Kristin Norderval, voice; Caroline Stinson, cello; Pavel Vinnitisky, clarinet; Liuh-Wen Ting, viola; Airi Yoshioka, violin.
About the Artists:
Praised as “fiery and emotive” (The New York Times), Ensemble Π is a new music group dedicated to exploring the music of living composers and undiscovered composers of the past. Founded in 2001 by pianist Idith Meshulam, it seeks to be actively involved in and comment on the current political situation in the world, and has a commitment to world’s peace. Since its inception, the ensemble has presented three Peace Concerts (the 2006, 2007 and 2008 In March We Remember). Many composers have written for the ensemble, including Philip Miller and Frederic Rzewski. Ensemble Π is currently recording the work of Elias Tanenbaum for a 2009 release on Capston records.
Krzysztof Penderecki (born in 1933) is one of the best-known and most-listened composers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In 1959, three of his compositions won first prizes in a competition sponsored by the Polish Composer’s Union. Fame rapidly followed with Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960) and Passion According to St. Luke (1963-66). Other major works include Dies Irae (also known as the Auschwitz Oratorio), Polish Requiem (commissioned by Solidarity), and stage works such as The Devils of Loudun (a European sensation in 1969), and Paradise Lost (premiered by the Chicago Lyric Opera in 1976), to only name a few. Penderecki is among the most honored composers, holding honorary memberships in many of the world’s most prestigious conservatories, awards from numerous competitions, several honorary doctorates, and has been recognized with national orders from such nations as Germany, Austria, and his native Poland.
South African composer Philip Miller has worked with some of the most innovative filmmakers and video artists to emerge from South Africa in recent years. Credits include soundtracks for the acclaimed and award-winning drama TV series, Yizo Yizo; the movie, Forgiveness (for which he was awarded the Golden Horn for best soundtrack by the South African Film and Television Awards), among others. Miller has collaborated extensively with the internationally acclaimed artist, William Kentridge, writing soundtracks to many of his animation films, which have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and Central Park in New York; the Barbican Centre and the Tate Modern in London; and many festivals in Europe. One of Miller’s latest works include Rewind, a Cantata based on testimonies recorded from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and premiered in the U.S. at the 2007 Celebrate Brooklyn Festival. http://www.philipmiller.info
Acclaimed as a composer, singer, and improviser, Kristin Norderval has premiered numerous new works for voice and presented original compositions at festivals and concert houses in Europe, the Far East, and the Americas. As a soloist she has performed with the Philip Glass Ensemble, the San Francisco Symphony, Oslo Sinfonietta, and the Netherlands Dance Theater, and has recorded with Aurora, CRI, Deep Listening, Eurydice, Koch International, and New World Records. In 2005 Norderval received the Henry Cowell Award from the American Music Center in recognition of her innovative work as a composer. Commissions have included works for Den Anden Opera in Copenhagen, the Bucharest International Dance Festival in Romania, jill sigman/thinkdance in New York City, and the early music ensemble Parthenia. Norderval’s compositions can be heard on Deep Listening, Koch International, and Everglade (soon to be released). http://www.norderval.org
Austrian composer Peter Ablinger began studying graphic arts, was enthused by free jazz, and completed his studies in composition with Gösta Neuwirth and Roman Haubenstock-Ramati in Graz and Vienna. Since 1982 he has lived in Berlin, where he has initiated and conducted numerous festivals and concerts. In 1988 he founded the Ensemble Zwischentone. In 1993 he was a visiting professor at the University of Music, Graz. He has been guest conductor of Klangforum Wien, United Berlin, and the Insel Musik Ensemble. http://ablinger.mur.at
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