ÉTERUM
The concert represents the Czech and Spanish improvised music scenes, which was held in Studio Hrdinů in the underground area of Veletržní palác in Prague and in studio in catalunya radio CatMusica in Barcelona.
ORQUESTRA DEL CAOS | BARCELONA
LONG-RANGE COMMUNICATION AND IMPROVISATION.
INTERACTION OF MUSIC ENSEMBLES ON AIR.
SILENCE IN THE CONCERT HALL AND THE UNIVERSE IN HEADPHONES.
ACOUSTICALLY RECORDED SPACE OF ACOUSMATIC IMAGINATION.
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The concert was held simultaneously in two places – in Studio Hrdinů in the underground area of Veletržní palác in Prague and in the Catalan Radio’s CatMusica Studio in Barcelona. During the performance the ensembles, was playing in the two places, was variously pervaded each other in joint music interaction. The programme consisted of two collaborative music concepts prepared for each ensemble by Barbara Held and George Cremaschi. These two concepts include three interludes created by joint improvisation of several musicians from each ensemble. Live concerts of two music groups played in different places intersected with each other in a single common concert “venue” of the radio air. The audience in STUDIO HRDINŮ were also given the opportunity to improvise with their own sound image of the whole event using borrowed headphones. During the concert it was possible to hear not only both ensembles at the same time but also the quiet of the concert hall and a special music channel.
program:
00:00 - EBU Ars Acustica signature tune, presenter's introduction (3'')
00:03 - Orquestra del Caos, CatMusica, Barcelona (11'')
00:14 - Interlude no. ONE (7'')
00:21 - Prague Improvisation Orchestra, Studio Hrdinů, Prague (11'')
00:32 - Interlude no. TWO (5'')
00:37 - Orquestra del Caos, CatMusica, Barcelona (19'')
00:56 - Interlude no. THREE (7'')
01:03 - Prague Improvisation Orchestra, Studio Hrdinů, Prague (17'')
01:20 - Presenter's conclusion (2'')
01:22 - EBU Ars Acustica signature tune
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Praague Improvisation Orchestra (PIO) was founded in the summer of 2012 by Petr Vrba and George Cremaschi, who were inspired by foreign artists and ensembles, such as the Globe Unity Orchestra, Sun Ra Arkestra, Butch Morris, the Scratch Orchestra, Moe Staiano or, for example, the Splitter Orchestra. The PIO is an orchestra focused on current improvisation techniques and on working with conducted improvisation, free improvisation, open and graphic scores. Comprising professional musicians with a wide variety of experience, the PIO helps to maintain the high level of Czech improvised music scene. The ensemble consists of three generations of Czech improvisers: from veteran saxophone player Jiří Durman to young composer and accordion player Lucie Vítková. George Cremaschi is an American musician and composer, who was born in New York and is working in Prague now. He has written compositions for dancers, rock bands, installation artists, improvisers, poets, films, folk musicians, theatres, orchestras and pop stars. As PIO’s co-founder and conductor he uses his experience of twenty years of collaborating with legendary improvisers, such as Cecil Taylor and Butch Morris, and working with their orchestras. Petr Vrba is a Czech musician and artist focused on music improvisation, who regularly cooperates with foreign artists in this field as a player and as a concert organizer.
Line-up (for the ÉTERUM project):
Jiří Durman - bass clarinet
Petr Vrba - trumpet and vibrating speakers
Ivan Palacký - amplified knitting machine and vocal
Lucie Vítková - accordion and vocal
Jorge Boehringer - viola
George Cremaschi - double bass
Michal Matejka - guitar
Ken Ganfield - electronics
Michal Zbořil - electronics
Matthew Goodheart - piano
http://www.georgecremaschi.com/pio.html
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ORQUESTRA DEL CAOS was founded in Barcelona in 1994. It is a multidisciplinary group of artists specially focused on projects in the area of experimental music and sound art. Their main goal is production, creation and spreading of sound art activities, music, audiovisual and multimedia projects with special interest in knowledge within the context of technological development. Orquestra del Caos is part of the Centre of Contemporary Culture in Barcelona (CCCB) and it manages the programmes of projects for experimental music and acoustic arts, such as “Sonoscop” - an archive of sound art and experimental music -, “EnRedO” - an electroacoustic music symposium - and “Zeppelin” - an acoustic arts festival.
Line-up (for the ÉTERUM project):
José Manuel Berenguer, electronics (http://www.sonoscop.net/jmb/)
Barbara Held, flutes (http://barbaraheld.com/)
Tom Chant, saxophone (http://www.tomchant.com/)
Míriam Fèlix, cello (http://miriamfelix.blogspot.com.es)
Pilar Subirà, percussions
http://www.sonoscop.net/sonoscop/orquestradelcaos.html
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Barbara Held is a flutist, composer and sound artist who lives in Barcelona, Spain. She has commissioned and performed an idiosyncratic body of new repertoire for flute by both Spanish and American composers, including Alvin Lucier’s “Self Portrait”, a series of scores by Yasunao Tone, and early film and performance work with Carles Santos and poet Joan Brossa. Her work has been moving outside of concert time; she has a continuing interest in composing with sound and image, and has performed with live video artists including Ursula Scherrer and Francesca Llopis as well as creating sound for installation pieces by visual artists such as Paloma Navares and Eugenia Balcells. She was the creator and producer of “Music at Metrónom”, a series of concerts of experimental music that gave special support to collaboration between musicians and visual artists, co-curator of “Possibility of Action; the life of the score” for the Documentation Center and Archive of the Barcelona MACBA museum of contemporary art during the 2008-09 season, and “Lines of Sight”, a series of seven programs of experimental music and radio art for radio web macba. Current projects include a video installation called “al barjaj” with Toni Serra based on his exploration of the old city of Fez, “State of the Sea” for the Floating Points festival at Issue Project Room in New York, and “7 channels”, a video installation with Yapci Ramos.
George Cremaschi is a composer, performer, teacher and sometime organizer. Using mostly contrabass and electronics, and working with free improvisation and a wide variety of non-idiomatic compositional approaches and techniques, his work attempts to dissolve the boundaries between music, sound art and noise, and extend their existing language, vocabulary and discourse. He has worked with, and composed for, a long list of distinguished improvisers, dancers and choreographers, installation artists, poets, filmmakers, folk musicians, theater groups, orchestras, rock bands and pop divas. Some of his current projects include the bands KRK (w/Matthew Ostrowski), Rohr Rohr (w/dieb13 and Gino Robair), Lambs Gamble (w/Fritz Welch and Eric Boros) and a trio with Lê Quan Ninh and Frédéric Blondy. He is also the founder (w/Petr Vrba) and director of Pražský Improvizační Orchestr (PIO), a 15-member group working with conducted and free improvisation, and graphic scores. As an interpreter, he has performed works by many composers including Andriessen, Braxton, Cage, Cardew, Feldman, Mingus, Oliveros, Penderecki, Tenney, Xenakis, etc, and has appeared on over 40 recordings on the Apestaartje, Beak Doctor, Black Saint, Emanem, Evander, Evolving Ear, Leo, Music & Arts, Nine Winds, Rastascan and 482 Music labels. Born in New York where he studied music and composition, he lived for many years in California and currently lives in Prague, Czech Republic where he teaches film sound at FAMU.
