Glasgow City Halls & Old Fruitmarket
tectonicsfestival.com bbc.co.uk/bbcsso @tectonicsglas
5 ––––––– 6 May 2018
“Britai n’s h i ppest o rchestral festival”
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The Guardia n with
Acrid Lactations Tony Bevan Adam Campbell James Clarke Pascale Criton Dror Feiler Ohad Fishof Nathalie Forget Ashley Fure Glasgow Chamber Choir Mats Gustafsson Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir Evan Johnson Tina Krekels Anton Lukoszevieze Ant Macari Laura Macdonald Lasse Marhaug Miya Masaoka Rytis Mažulis Sue McKenzie Bernard Parmegiani Naomi Pinnock Joe Posset Danielle Price Marc Sabat Syzygys Silvia Tarozzi Tetsuya Umeda Deborah Walker Noa Zuk Ilan Volkov BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
tectonicsfestival.com bbc.co.uk/bbcsso @tectonicsglas
Alasdair Campbell/AC Projects gratefully acknowledges the support of Creative Scotland and The British Sasakawa Foundation. The majority of performances at Tectonics Glasgow will be recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
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Welco me to Tecto n ics Glasgow 2018 When we launched the first Tectonics festival in 2013 we were committed to bringing the best improvisers and new music practitioners from around the world to Glasgow, to collaborate together and with local performers and artists. That ethos has never changed and this year we welcome performers and composers from Japan, Lithuania, France, Sweden, Norway and the USA as well as UK and Scottish-based artists. Tetsuya Umeda from Osaka has been investigating the musical possibilities of spaces for years and he brings his unique creativity to a performance in the Old Fruitmarket. Legendary ‘80s Japanese pop duo Syzygys headline Saturday night, while New York’s Miya Masaoka brings the traditional sounds of the Japanese koto into the 21st century with a major new work. She’ll also be collaborating with British sax virtuoso Tony Bevan, just one of several sax performers this year which include Mats Gustafsson, who will also create a new work for the Old Fruitmarket, and Dror Feiler. Feiler has written a new work for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, where he’ll be joined by Gustafsson and Lasse Marhaug, who also has a solo Sunday set. Local performers Acrid Lactations (Susan Fitzpatrick and Stuart Arnot) give a solo set on Sunday and join Joe Posset for his Grand Dictaphone Jaxx, while Tina Krekels brings the mating rituals of the anglerfish up from the deep for her new piece Pardon, I have tentacles. As well as Feiler’s new work, there are World Premieres for the BBC SSO from Naomi Pinnock, James Clarke, Evan Johnson, and Marc Sabat and a recent work by Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir. There’s also a focus on the French composer Pascale Criton, who brings a new piece to the festival along with her regular collaborators and performers Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker. For that work they are joined by one of the world’s leading exponents of the ondes Martenot, Nathalie Forget, who opens the festival with Bernard Parmegiani’s classic work Outremer. Crossing artforms has also been a component of this festival since its inception, and this year there will be four performances of The Burnt Room, which brings together dance and semi-improvised music, staged in the Recital Room. It’s been seen in Berlin and Tel Aviv and we’re thrilled to bring it to Glasgow. Enjoy yourselves, Ilan Volkov and Alasdair Campbell, curators
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‘THE BU RNT RO O M’ Noa Zuk & Ohad Fishof Recital Room The Burnt Room is a dance piece made for a room. The audience sits around the stage area, physically marking its borders. The work was commissioned by The Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv and Neuer Berliner Kuntsverein, and was premiered in November 2016, as part of both art institutions’ joint performance art project, “Conditions for Political Choreography”. Sparse and monochromatic, The Burnt Room is performed by two dancers accompanied by its two creators, who are also responsible for the live soundtrack. Some of the familiar traits of Zuk and Fishof’s previous work are easily noticeable here: the measured theatricality; the use of movement to create a world of ethnographic fiction, with fabricated rituals, invented languages and an affinity to the absurd; and the complex interrelations between what is seen and what is heard. They often employ choreographic algorithms which can be manifested in dance and sound simultaneously, and thus create a multidimensional choreographic tapestry of audial movement and visible sound. Ohad Fishof is an interdisciplinary artist, working in a diverse range of fields including dance, sound, performance, video and installation. Noa Zuk is a choreographer and a dancer. Performances of The Burnt Room take place in the Recital Room. The performance lasts approx. 55 minutes. Saturday 5 May: 18.30 and 22.30 Sunday 6 May: 18.15 and 21.30
Strictly limited capacity. Advance reservation is essential. Please reserve your space on arrival at City Halls, on the day of performance. Spaces will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
Day 1: SATU RDAY 5 MAY From 15.30 Recital Room
THE SO U N D SESSIO NS 1 Throughout the weekend, musicians and sound artists/performers will appear in the Recital Room including sets from Mark Vernon, Barry Burns, Alicia Matthews, Kim Moore and Ohad Fishof. 16.00 – c.16.50 Old Fruitmarket
NATHALIE FO RGET PLAYS PARMEGIAN I J O E PO SSET’S ‘GRAN D DICTAPH O N IC JAXX FO R FO U R PLAYE RS’ Ondist Nathalie Forget opens the festival with a performance of Outremer by Bernard Parmegiani, a major figure in the development of 20th century electroacoustic music, and one of his key compositions. Joe Posset, meanwhile, continues his explorations into multiple tape players, Dictaphone techniques and European text-sound for a performance in a quartet with audio/visual artist Ant Macari and the improvising duo, Acrid Lactations. c.17.00 – c.17.30 Grand Hall
CHAM BE R CO NCE RT 1: LU KO SZEVIEZE PLAYS MAzU LIS One of the leading contemporary composers in Lithuania, Rytis Mažulis’s music has been labelled ‘super-minimalist’. Cellist and artist/ composer Anton Lukoszevieze performs the World Premiere of Solipse, a new work for cello and tape, dedicated to him, which uses slow, hypnotic music to suggest the solipsistic nature of the creative process. Images (this page): Ilan Volkov, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Nathalie Forget and Joe Posset. (Opposite page): Rytis Mažulis, Anton Lukoszevieze, Tetsuya Umeda, The Burnt Room and Nathalie Forget.
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17.30 Recital Room
THE SO U N D SESSIO NS 2 Drop by for performances from our Recital Room artists. c.17.45 – c.18.15 Old Fruitmarket
TETSUYA U ME DA Japanese sound-artist and performer Tetsuya Umeda is renowned for opening up dialogues between objects and surroundings within non-performing spaces and here will bring his unique exploratory senses to this performance in the Old Fruitmarket. Using the venue itself and everyday objects and scraps of waste material, Umeda’s performance is likely to be powered by gravity, wind and natural forces – and by his idiosyncratic ability to find the miraculous in the most unlikely places. c.18.30 – c.19.30 Recital Room
THE BU RNT RO O M: Perfo rmance 1 See page 4. Strictly limited capacity. Please reserve your space in advance on arrival at City Halls, on the day of performance. Spaces will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. 18.30 – 19.00 Scottish Music Centre
MEET THE ARTISTS 1 Your chance to meet and hear about some of the artists involved in Day 1 of Tectonics. c.18.30 – c.19.00 The Club Room
WO RKSH O P: THE O N DES MARTE NOT The haunting, hypnotic sound of the ondes Martenot, one of the earliest electronic instruments, is introduced and demonstrated by Nathalie Forget in the intimate space of the Club Room.
19.30 – c.20.00 Grand Hall
BBC SCOTTISH SYM PH O NY O RCHESTRA Naomi Pinnock New Work (World Premiere) James Clarke Untitled No.9 (BBC Commission, World Premiere) BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Ilan Volkov conductor The BBC SSO takes to the stage for two World Premieres conducted by Ilan Volkov. Naomi Pinnock’s new work explores the dynamics of intimacy and space within the orchestra, referencing Agnes Martin’s set of twelve paintings, The Islands, painted in 1979, the year of the composer’s birth. Meanwhile, artist and composer James Clarke’s Untitled No.9 continues his belief that music (and visual art) makes a statement on its own terms, avoiding words descriptions and titles as much as possible. 20.00 Recital Room
THE SO U N D SESSIO NS 3 Drop by for performances from our Recital Room artists. c.20.20 – c.20.45 Old Fruitmarket
M IYA MASAO KA: The M ovement o f Th i ngs
Musician, composer and performance artist Miya Masaoka is interested in the nuances of speed, time and perception. The Movement of Things, her new work for orchestra and choir, conveys a sense that things are going nowhere – when in fact they are going somewhere – just very slowly. With the Glasgow Chamber Choir.
Images (this page): BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Naomi Pinnock, James Clarke and Miya Masaoka. (Opposite page): Dror Feiler, Mats Gustafsson, Lasse Marhaug and Syzygys.
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21.00 – c.21.30 Grand Hall
DRO R FE I LE R AN D THE BBC SSO Dror Feiler
(Tikkun Olam) (World Premiere)
A new work by self-styled music trasher, saxophone screamer and a political activist Dror Feiler for which he will be joined by fellow saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, Lasse Marhaug on electronics and the BBC SSO. “Of three or four in a room there is always one who stands at the window. He must see the injustice among the thorns and the fires on the hill.” (Yehuda Amichai, 1958) Dror Feiler saxophone, clarinet and electronics Mats Gustafsson saxophone and electronics Lasse Marhaug electronics BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Ilan Volkov conductor 21.45 – 22.30 Old Fruitmarket
SYZYGYS Formed in 1985, Syzygys – Hitomi Shimizu (43-microtone organ) and Hiromi Nishida (violin) - created “microtonal pop” for many years, championed by John Zorn amongst others, and gained a cult following for music that was as hilarious as it was delightful. They recently reformed for Otona, an album of purely instrumental organ and violin duets, and this is an unmissable chance to see them outside of Japan. c.22.30 – c.23.30 Recital Room
THE BU RNT RO O M: Perfo rmance 2 See page 4. Strictly limited capacity. Please reserve your space in advance on arrival at City Halls, on the day of performance. Spaces will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
Day 2:SU N DAY 6 MAY From 14.30 Recital Room
THE SO U N D SESSIO NS 4 Drop by for performances from our Recital Room artists. From 14.30 Foyer and around the building
TETSUYA U ME DA Expect appearances from Tetsuya Umeda across the building on Sunday as he brings parts of City Halls’ spaces to life through his singular vision. 15.00 – c.15.45 Old Fruitmarket
TO NY BEVAN & M IYA MASAO KA TI NA KRE KE LS with ADAM CAM PBE LL: Pardo n, I have tentacles Day Two of the Festival kicks off with UK sax legend Tony Bevan, improvising with Miya Masaoka. Edinburgh-based composer and improviser Tina Krekels is then joined by Adam Campbell for a work inspired by the mating rituals of the anglerfish, for voice, saxophone, electronics, synthesised voice and modular synth and which tells the story of entangled bodies where men get eaten.
Images (this page): Tetsuya Umeda, Tony Bevan, Miya Masaoka, Tine Krekels and Adam Campbell. (Opposite page): Pascale Criton, Silvia Tarozzi, Deborah Walker and Lasse Marhaug.
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c.16.00 – c.17.00 Grand Hall
PASCALE CRITO N: RECE NT WO RKS Pascale Criton Bothsways, for violin and cello Pascale Criton/Silvia Tarozzi Circle Process, for violin Pascale Criton OUT, for ondes Martenot Pascale Criton/Deborah Walker Chaoscaccia Pascale Criton New Work (World Premiere) Silvia Tarozzi violin Deborah Walker cello Nathalie Forget ondes Martenot Since the 1980s Pascale Criton has been exploring sound variability, microtunings and multisensory reception in her works. In this set, her piece Bothsways is performed by regular collaborators Silvia Tarozzi (violin) and Deborah Walker (cello) whose co-authored (with Criton) works Circle Process and Chaoscaccia also employ instruments tuned to 1/16th of a tone. They are joined by Nathalie Forget for a solo performance of OUT and for the World Premiere of a new work by Criton. c.17.00 Recital Room
THE SO U N D SESSIO NS 5 Drop by for performances from our Recital Room artists. c.17.30 – c.18.00 Old Fruitmarket
LASSE MARHAU G Lasse Marhaug is one of the most active artists in the Norwegian noise/experimental music scene, frequently branching into improv, jazz, rock and extreme metal. Death of the Noise Artist is a new multi-channel piece for electronics and field recordings and is a musical examination of the surroundings in which he grew up, a rural area above the Arctic Circle in Norway. c.18.15 – c.19.15 Recital Room
THE BU RNT RO O M: Perfo rmance 3 See page 4.
c.18.30 – 19.00 Scottish Music Centre
MEET THE ARTISTS 2 Your chance to meet and hear about some of the artists involved in Day 2 of Tectonics. c.18.30 – c.19.00 The Club Room
WO RKSH O P: THE DICTAPH O NE Joe Posset speaks about the history of Dictaphones in underground music, with a short demonstration of Dicta-techniques. Feel free to bring your own Dictaphones and mini-tape recorders if you want to join in. 19.30 – c.21.00 Grand Hall
BBC SCOTTISH SYM PH O NY O RCHESTRA 2 Ashley Fure Bound to the Bow (European Premiere) Evan Johnson measurement as contrition: three canons (World Premiere) Kristin Þóra Haraldsdóttir In Praise of Darkness (UK Premiere) Marc Sabat The Luminiferous Aether (BBC Commission, World Premiere) BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Ilan Volkov conductor Ashley Fure’s Bound to the Bow made her a Pulitzer-Prize finalist and is a mesmerising piece, at once rigorous and evocative, inspired by Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. measurement as contrition is, in the composer’s words, “an inaccessible, distant, privately meditative hovering over the measurement of spaces and the weighing of volumes… The orchestra is there, in large part, as potential, an outer bound”. In Praise of Darkness was written for the Dark Music Days festival in Reykjavík, and Haraldsdóttir explores the dark using unusual tunings, loops and natural cycles. Berlin-based Canadian composer Marc Sabat typically draws inspiration from investigations of the sounding and perception of Just Intonation, and his new BBC Commission explores “gradually shifting harmonic constellations with melodic counterpoints”.
Images (this page): Joe Posset, Ashley Fure, Evan Johnson, Kristin Þóra Haraldsdóttir and Marc Sabat. (Opposite page): Acrid Lactations, Mats Gustafsson and The Burnt Room.
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c.20.00 Recital Room
THE SO U N D SESSIO NS 6 Drop by in the interval of the BBC SSO concert for performances from our Recital Room artists. c.21.00 – 21.30 Old Fruitmarket
ACRI D LACTATIO NS MATS GUSTAFSSO N: PLU GS Acrid Lactations (Susan Fitzpatrick and Stuart Arnot) “fold musique concrète techniques and sound poetry into broken jazz and electronics in a putatively, primitivist improvisational practice”. For Tectonics they will be performing a musico-spatial improvisation for assorted instruments, voices and miscellany. Mats Gustafsson’s PLUGS (2000) for mixed ensemble and conductor is presented in a new extended version and is a study of the expected and unexpected and a celebration of the capabilities of listening, thinking and acting freely. It is dedicated to Dror Feiler. With Danielle Price (tuba), Sue McKenzie (soprano sax) and Laura Macdonald (alto sax). c.21.30 – c.22.30 Recital Room
THE BU RNT RO O M: Perfo rmance 4 See page 4. Strictly limited capacity. Please reserve your space in advance on arrival at City Halls, on the day of performance. Spaces will be allocated on a first-come, first served basis.
FESTIVAL PASSES £28/£20 co ncessio n* A limited number of advance passes are available for the Festival. They allow entry to all events across the two days and are the best way to save money. Passes are limited and are only available to buy until Friday 27 April 2018. No refunds are available for partial use. Subject to availability.
DAY PASSES £18/£14 co ncessio n* Day Passes allow access to events on just Saturday or Sunday. Please note that it is not possible to book for individual events in the Festival. Concessions are available to students, unemployed and registered disabled. Proof of status is necessary.
How to Bo o k Online at: bbc.co.uk/bbcsso By phone: 0141 353 8000 In person: City Halls Box Office, Candleriggs, Glasgow G1 1NQ or from the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Box Office *Venue Booking Fees: A transaction charge of £1 applies to all online booking and £1.50 for all phone bookings.
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GETTI NG TO THE CITY HALLS an d O LD FRU ITMARKET City Halls and The Old Fruitmarket are situated at the heart of the Merchant City at the north end of Candleriggs between Trongate and Ingram Street. It is within easy walking distance of Argyle Street, Queen Street, High Street and Central railway stations as well as St. Enoch and Buchanan Street subway stations. Buchanan Bus Station is a 15 minute walk away. All entrances at City Halls and the Old Fruitmarket are fully accessible with lifts to every level of the auditorium. Wheelchairs are available on request and can be pre-booked via the box oďŹƒce. Guide dogs are welcome at City Halls.
All information was correct at the time of publishing. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra reserves the right to amend artists and programmes for any of the listed concerts if necessary. All timings are approximate.
Co n nect with Tecto n ics Glasgow Artists Tony Bevan foghornrecords.co.uk Adam Campbell adamcampbell.org / @atttcampbell James Clarke jamesclarke.org Pascale Criton pascalecriton.com Dror Feiler drorfeiler.se / @DrorFeiler Ohad Fishof ohadfishof.org Nathalie Forget nathalieforgetondes.com Ashley Fure ashleyfure.com Glasgow Chamber Choir glasgowchamberchoir.org.uk / @GlasCChoir Mats Gustafsson matsgus.com Kristin ร รณra Haraldsdรณttir facebook.com/kristinthorah Evan Johnson evanjohnson.info Tina Krekels tinakrekels.com Anton Lukoszevieze antonlukoszevieze.co.uk / @AntonAnnex Ant Macari facebook.com/itsstoviesseason / @antmacari Laura Macdonald facebook.com/lauramacdonaldsax Lasse Marhaug lassemarhaug.no / @lassemarhaug Miya Masaoka miyamasaoka.com / @miyamasaoka Sue McKenzie suemckenziesaxophone.com / @mcksax Naomi Pinnock naomipinnock.co.uk / @naomipinnock Joe Posset posset.bandcamp.com / @joeposset Danielle Price @DanielleTuba Marc Sabat marcsabat.com Syzygys syzygys.jp Silvia Tarozzi silviatarozzi.it Tetsuya Umeda siranami.com Noa Zuk noazuk.wordpress.com
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra BBC Scotland City Halls, Candleriggs Glasgow G1 1NQ Email: bbcsso@bbc.co.uk bbc.co.uk/bbcsso