From the Troy, NY EMPAC:
Jean-Pierre Luminet: The Harmony of the Spheres, from Antiquity to Contemporary Music
Saturday February 26, 6:30 PM
Theater
FREE + Open to the PublicGérard Grisey: Le Noir de l’Étoile
performed by Les Percussions de Strasbourg
Saturday, February 26, 2011, 8 PM
Concert Hall
$15/10/5A concert where music meets signals from outer space, performed by six percussionists with over 400 instruments surrounding the audience
Radio signals emitted by two pulsars from a distant place in the universe become part of a work played on six percussion stations that surround the audience. This piece was commissioned from Gérard Grisey by the French ensemble Les Percussions de Strasbourg, which will perform at EMPAC. Grisey has been called one of the founders of so-called spectral music (a label he later disowned). In this piece, the evolution of timbres played by instruments, and of sound colors as they expand, explore the great complexities of what our ears can hear, and take the audience on a journey inside the sound of music. Not only is the space “out there” brought into the Concert Hall, the hall itself is made part of the experience by placing the performers, instruments, and loudspeakers around the audience.
The concert will be preceded at 6:30 PM by The Harmony of the Spheres, from Antiquity to Contemporary Music, a free talk in the Theater by the renowned French astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet – a specialist in black holes and cosmology as well as the co-author of Le Noir de l’Étoile — who will speak about the link between music and the celestial bodies beyond our horizon.
Related articles
- Get ready for a 3-D sound experience with Les Percussions de Strasbourg (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Conjuring Up Wondrous Sounds (nytimes.com)
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