Thursday 14 February 2019, 7.30pm
Please note that Jim O'Rourke will be performing remotely for this event and will not be in attendance at the venue.
KASSEL JAEGER
Presque rien n°2, ainsi continue la nuit dans ma tête multiple (1977) 21'37
Description of a landscape at night that a soundman attempts to define through microphones, but the night surprises the "hunter" and creeps inside his head. It then becomes a double description: The inner landscape transforms the outer night and by composing it, adds its own reality (a fantasy of reality) or, perhaps, a psychoanalysis of his 'nightscape’?
Petite symphonie intuitive pour un paysage de printemps (1973–1974), 25’09
“This electroacoustic music is part of a series that could be called “imaginary soundscape”. Unlike ‘Presque rien ou le lever du jour au bord de la mer (almost nothing or daybreak by the seaside)’, where the landscape narrates itself, here a traveller discovers a landscape which he tries to convey as a musical landscape. Brunhild and I were in the Gorges du Tarn area. We chose to take a small path that was going up a rocky mountain for about ten kilometres.
After a last turn, a totally unexpected landscape opened before my eyes. It was sunset. Before us, a vast plateau spread open with soft curves up to the horizon, up to the sun. The colours ranged from dry grass yellow to purple, in the distance, with the darkness of a few small groves punctuating the space. The almost bare nature was presenting itself to the eye, free from any obstacle. We could see everything. Later, when I recollected this place and the sensations I had experienced there, I tried to compose a music that could revive this memory. The "Causse Méjean" is a high plateau, about 1000 m high, in the Massif Central mountain range. It is dotted by scattered farms. A few people bring their flocks of sheep home. I thought about evoking this solitary and hazy human presence by including snippets of conversations I had had with some of the shepherds. Human language is woven into the musical texture; the sound of the voice says more than its actually meaning. Once, a shepherd told me “... I am never bored. I listen to the landscape. Sometimes I play my flute and then I listen to the echo responding...” Thinking of him, I used the flute and its echo in my music.”
Luc Ferrari. October 18, 2002
“Like most of my fellow human beings, I was born, I grew up, I attended schools, I passed exams, I failed, I loved, I worked hard sometimes, I enjoyed life;
I continue. I worked with Pierre Schaeffer in the ORTF research department on the relationship between sound and image. Of German origin, I have had an activity as an interpreter and translator. Following Luc Ferrari's advice in matters of life, music, and composition, and working with him over the course of our 40 years together, I made my own Hörspiele and radio plays broadcast on France Culture, in the United States, and the main German radio stations. Since Luc left us in 2005, I have taken care of the preservation of his vast archives; founded the "Association Presque Rien - Friends of Luc Ferrari"; initiated and organized the biennial competition PRESQUE RIEN Prize by providing artists with original sound material from Luc's sound recordings; and edited a book of his writings and documents (Musiques dans les spasmes, published by les Presses du Réel, France) as well as one more book in English together with Catherine Marcangeli (Luc Ferrari: Complete Works, published by Ecstatic Peace library). I composed music; I continue.”
Brunhild Ferrari
David Grubbs is a musician and writer based in Brooklyn. He was a founding member of the groups Gastr del Sol, Bastro, and Squirrel Bait, and has performed with the Red Krayola, Will Oldham, Tony Conrad, Pauline Oliveros, Loren Connors, Susan Howe, and many others. His books include Good night the pleasure was ours, The Voice in the Headphones, Now that the audience is assembled, and Records Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording (all published by Duke University Press). Grubbs is a 2024-25 Berlin Prize recipient from the American Academy in Berlin as well as Distinguished Professor of Music at Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, CUNY.
