Listening Theatre

The ZKM is pleased to welcome »ensemble recherche«, one of the foremost New Music ensembles, for a guest appearance. Founded in 1985, the ensemble has made a decisive contribution to the development of contemporary chamber and ensemble music, as is indicated by its large number of first performances. Its extremely wide-ranging repertoire extends from the classical to the contemporary.
 

Perfect symbiosis of art and technology

At the ZKM, ensemble recherche will be presenting works for ensemble and electronics. Helping to create a perfect symbiosis between art and technology will be the experimental studio of the SWR’s Heinrich Strobel Foundation from Freiburg. Since the studio was set up as an electronic music orchestra in 1971, it has developed an unorthodox practice for performances of its compositions. One outcome is what is called the MatrixMixer, which will be installed in the ZKM Cube for the evening. This is a fully digital, multi-dimensional instrument for the virtuoso spatialisation of sound sources that coordinates complex electronic sequences during the performance. The interpretations by ensemble recherche of works such as »Decoy« (2004) by the British composer, Alwynne Pritchard, »Critical Band« (1988/2000) by the American James Tenney, and »Rondo-vous« (2002) by the Slovenian, Uros Rojko, will make the evening a delightful listening experience.

Augmenting the programme will be the acousmatic piece Palimpseste, which the Franco-Canadian composer and ZKM artist-in-residence, Robert Normandeau, will interpret as a confrontation between art and technology using the ZKM’s own equipment.