Four accomplished pianists, four acoustically distinct venues, five grand pianos. This evening of piano performances brought together some of the leading soloists working today in new music to explore their instrument’s full color spectrum in EMPAC’s complete range of acoustic environments. Performing on grand pianos of varying sizes and manufactures, Pianoply examined virtuosity through the lens of situation and setting.

Pianoply featured soloists Vicky Chow, Stephen Drury, Mabel Kwan, and Marilyn Nonken, performing on a selection of pianos: a 9’ Hamburg Steinway, 9’ New York Steinway, 7’ Fazioli, 6’ 7” Bösendorfer, and 7’ 6” Yamaha pianos.

The audience was guided through all of EMPAC’s venues—the reverberant warmth of the Concert Hall, the intimacy of the Theater, the detailed crispness of Studio 1 and the enveloping diffusion of Studio 2—to explore the sonic properties of contemporary repertoire performed through particular instruments placed in particular spaces.

PROGRAM

PROGRAM

Vicky Chow - Studio 2

Michael Gordon - Sonatra (2004)

Stephen Drury - Studio 1

John Cage - Etudes Australes, Book I (1974-75)

Marilyn Nonken - Theater

Joshua Fineberg - Tremors (1996)

Tristan Murail - La mandragore (1993)

Claude Vivier - Shiraz (1977)

Mabel Kwan - Concert Hall

Evan Johnson - three reversed movements, to bring destroyed objects back to life (2014)

Eliza Brown - Between Clouds (2012)

Rebecca Saunders - Shadow (2013)

Gerardo Gandini - Eusebius, Four Nocturnes for One Piano (1984)

Composer Michael Gordon and pianist Vicky Chow were in residence to record, edit, mix and master the work Sonatra. A technical tour-de-force, Sonatra was recorded twice in the Concert Hall—once in standard tuning and once in Just intonation.

Sonatra was released in 2018 by Cantaloupe Records.

PULSE Live! takes over EMPAC for its annual evening of electronic dance music. Experience the best student DJs, VJs, producers, and designers performing live with all the technological power of EMPAC at their disposal. PULSE (People Using Live Software and Electronics) is a Rensselaer student group that meets weekly at EMPAC to learn, practice, and experiment with digital sound technology. Participation is open to all Rensselaer students. PULSE Live! marks the culmination of a year’s worth of work.

Sound artist Sabisha Friedberg’s work explores perceptual thresholds, focused sub-sonic compositions, and low-frequency levitation. It pulls together concepts from the perceptual, phenomenological, and phantasmagorical to create thought-provoking, mystifying pieces. During her residency, Friedberg offered a talk and a work-in-progress installation/performance.

For Chasing the Phantasmagorical: Challenges and Process, Friedberg discussed her past practice as well as the elements investigated during her time at EMPAC.

Continuing her explorations into sound and frequency, the performance Strange Cloak–Sub-Flight Infinity investigated the relationship of levitation, suspension, and low-end thresholds through metaphor, pseudo-science, and real physics. The piece was built around bass-frequency sonic levitation with objects made to float and flutter as a ghostly effect of the sound waves themselves. 

Born in South Africa and currently based out of Brooklyn and Paris, Friedberg has performed and presented installations widely in Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, Japan, and Northern America.

Speicher, an evening-length concert work by German composer Enno Poppe, is a project that was in development since 2008. Premiered at the Donaueschingen Festival in 2013 to widespread acclaim, Speicher pushes its 22 players to their interpretative and technical extremes. Complex rhythms, microtonal intonation, and nuanced textures combine to create a rich and detailed work of ambitious scale and scope. Poppe says the following about the piece:

“Musical phenomena are never abstract. The idea behind Speicher is the search for extremes—extreme condensation, thinning, acceleration, broadening. For the piece to be able to continue and remain interesting, it is important—besides diversity—for the audience to be able to recognize certain parts. Anything can be recognizable—a single sound as well as a complete formal structure. Therefore it seems less important to keep inserting new ideas into the piece but rather to create an unpredictable network of derivations. The next step would be to be able to foresee what will happen next. Thus, an active way of listening would be created. But, in a reservoir [‘speicher’], things always get into a mess anyway.”

Enno Poppe’s music, which he summarizes as “dented nature,” grounds itself in compositional guidelines influenced by acoustics, biology, and mathematics. As his composition unfolds, he gradually disobeys his own rules, contorting material to create an unstable, constantly evolving, almost hallucinatory atmosphere of unexpected sounds.

A US premiere, Speicher was presented in the Concert Hall, featuring the US-based Talea Ensemble.

A rare US performance by Mouse on Mars, one of the most influential and innovative duos in German electronic music. This concert marked the opening of Rosa Barba’s The Color Out of Space, for which Jan St. Werner designed the soundtrack. 

Since 1993, Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma have been making electronic music that defies genre labels and classification, mixing IDM with krautrock, disco, pop, ambient, and avant-garde styles. Their music has been reinterpreted by orchestras and remixed by DJs, performed in concert halls and shown in museums. Characteristically, their 21 Again anniversary record featured collaborators as diverse as Tortoise, Prefuse 73, Modeselektor, Junior Boys, and members of Stereolab, the Boredoms, and Battles. Fusing theory, sound research, and deep, sensual experience, the duo has forged an identity around process and agility rather than any set sound profile. 

Speicher, an evening-length concert work by German composer Enno Poppe, is a project that was in development since 2008. Premiered at the Donaueschingen Festival in 2013 to widespread acclaim, Speicher pushes its 22 players to their interpretative and technical extremes. Complex rhythms, microtonal intonation, and nuanced textures combine to create a rich and detailed work of ambitious scale and scope. Poppe says the following about the piece:

"Musical phenomena are never abstract. The idea behind Speicher is the search for extremes—extreme condensation, thinning, acceleration, broadening. For the piece to be able to continue and remain interesting, it is important—besides diversity—for the audience to be able to recognize certain parts. Anything can be recognizable—a single sound as well as a complete formal structure. Therefore it seems less important to keep inserting new ideas into the piece but rather to create an unpredictable network of derivations. The next step would be to be able to foresee what will happen next. Thus, an active way of listening would be created. But, in a reservoir ['speicher'], things always get into a mess anyway.”

Enno Poppe’s music, which he summarizes as “dented nature,” grounds itself in compositional guidelines influenced by acoustics, biology, and mathematics. As his composition unfolds, he gradually disobeys his own rules, contorting material to create an unstable, constantly evolving, almost hallucinatory atmosphere of unexpected sounds.

A US premiere, Speicher was presented in the Concert Hall, featuring the US-based Talea Ensemble.

The US premiere of a new duo project from two of the most restless innovators in electronic music.

Mark Fell and Keith Fullerton Whitman are each known for their fluid approaches to electronic music making. Born of the techno generation, both have infused, deconstructed, and transcended their early mastery of vernacular dance styles with a more academic ear toward the legacy and promise of computer music. Exploring the technical, conceptual, and aesthetic notions of music synthesis, the duo is extending their shared approach to the project after an inaugural run of European performances in fall 2014.