Quadraphonics
In
June 2006, the Penderecki Quartet in collaboration with Toronto's SoundaXis
Festival , NUMUS Concerts, the Perimeter Institute and Wilfrid Laurier
University's Quartetfest, presented a concert celebrating the architectural
achievements of the Perimeter Institute, and the Ontario College of
Art and Design, while also paying tribute to the life and work of music
composer and architect, Iannis Xenakis.
Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) had an acclaimed career as an architect,
working with Le Corbusier in Paris and designing the Philips Pavilion
at Brussels World Fair in 1958. As a composer, Xenakis's music is renowned
internationally for its remarkable singularity of vision, bold gesture,
and genius mathematical constructs. Xenakis spent most of his career
working at the IRCAM centre for innovations in music in Paris. For the
Quadraphonics concert Xenakis's Tetras for String Quartet and his multi-channel
tape piece La légende d'Er will be presented. La légende
d'Er was written for the opening of the IRCAM's George Pompidou Centre
in Paris. A video of this original presentation in Paris accompanied
the surround-sound performance at the Quadraphonics concerts.
James Harley was also commissioned to write a new work for string octet.
Harley has distinguished himself internationally and locally as chair
of the composition department at the University of Guelph, and finds
kinship with the work of Xenakis through his recent book Xenakis: Life
and Work, published by Random House. Harley wrote a work for spatialized
performers by placing the one quartet on stage and one quartet behind
the audience.
Quadraphonics is a concert which proceeds from four quartets to one
single quartet: four quartets performing a phased/antiphonal version
of Mozart's Adagio from the Dissonance quartet, followed by the Steve
Reich triple quartet, followed by Harley=s octet, and finishing with
Xenakis's Tetras for string quartet. The inclusion of the Mozart Adagio
from the Dissonance Quartet for four displaced quartets is not only
a contribution to the ubiquitous celebrations of Mozart's 250th year,
but also an interrogation of "dissonance" in a contemporary
context -where phase techniques, micro polyphony, and a wide range of
acoustic manipulation devices have become familiar musical concepts.
The arrangement for four displaced quartets will explore the issues
of musical context by drawing on the ideas of Stokowski, Ives, Xenakis
and Glass, attempting to cast Mozart in a contemporary light.
"The program was ingeniously designed...on the whole perhaps the
most successful new music event this listener has ever taken in."
Jan Narveson, The Record
"The Penderecki quartet delivered contrasts that were subtle and
controlled, with tight timing yet flexibility as well, leading the ear
through the piece." John Oliver, SoundaXis blog
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