Monday 7 March 2016, 8pm
The fantastic Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt performs new pieces by Walter Marchetti and Michael Pisaro. Having worked with Marchetti in the final months before his death last year, van Houdt premiered his final piece, Per La Mano Sinistra, which he has since recorded for the Alga Marghen label and will be performing tonight. January this year saw the results of a collaboration with Michael Pisaro released as a 3CD set on the Erstwhile label and van Houdt will also be performing Pisaro's piece for piano and electronics, Green Hour, Grey Future.
“A pianist of astonishing technique, the Dutch musical daredevil has focused on questions that often elude traditional notation: sound, timing, physicality, space, memory, noise, environment—and the points at which interpretation touches improvisation.” – Redcat
The event also marks the launch of Cours de Poétique’s first publication of The Listening Reader. The book will be available on the evening for a special price of £10 (normally £15).
Reinier van Houdt started working with taperecorders, radio's, objects and various string-instruments at a young age. He studied piano at the Liszt-Akademie in Budapest & the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. He developed a fascination for matters that escape notation: sound, timing, space, physicality, memory, noise, environment - points beyond interpretation and improvisation. He has built himself an unusual repertoire that consistently resulted from personal quests; be it from collaborations with composers & musicians, from research in archives, from the composing and staging of music-performances or from unorthodox studies of classical music.
He premiered music by Robert Ashley, Alvin Curran, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, Francisco López, Charlemagne Palestine, Yannis Kyriakides, Maria de Alvear, Jerry Hunt, Michael Pisaro, Walter Marchetti. He has also worked with John Cage, Alvin Lucier, Luc Ferrari, Olivier Messiaen and Christian Marclay. Reinier van Houdt plays in Current 93, recently releasing an album with contributions by Nick Cave, John Zorn and Antony Hegarty. He is also one of the moving forces behind the experimental music outfit MAE/MAZE.
https://www.reiniervanhoudt.nl/
Cours de Poétique (CdP) is the publishing imprint of Polimekanos. It was founded by Joseph Kohlmaier (Musarc) and Stefan Kraus in 2016 and launched with the publication of The Listening Reader.
The Listening Reader brings together a number of essays that explore the role of sound and listening in the context of contemporary art. They engage with the specific timbre that the act of listening, and the paradigm of sound bring to the practice of artists; how this paradigm is present within a broader discourse, including the creative arts, sciences, philosophy and politics; and how art that begins with, or requires listening circulates in the world of the art gallery.
The texts in this anthology emerged from conversations, talks, and performances by a number of artists, curators, and writers whose work was presented at, or contributed to the making and public programme of Listening, a Hayward Curatorial Open exhibition that toured the UK from September 2014 to March 2016. It includes previously unpublished essays and contributions from Ed Atkins, Sam Belinfante, Mikhail Karikis, Joseph Kohlmaier, Brandon LaBelle, Ed McKeon, Imogen Stidworthy and Laure Prouvost.
