BS DC Import ID
node:50285
BS DC Import Time
Design - Head - Color
inverse
Event

Jennifer Higdon | »Femmes4Music«

a Digital Feature

Sun, December 11, 2022 7:00 pm CET

© Jennifer Higdon at Kimmel Center by Andrew Bogard
Location
Online

Hailed by the Washington Post as »a savvy, sensitive composer with a keen ear, an innate sense of form and a generous dash of pure esprit«, her work covers various genres and ranges from orchestral and chamber music pieces to wind ensembles, vocal, choral works and operas.

Import ID
r17_video:1065809
Admin Title
D7 Paragraph: r17_video / GPC_ID: 122642
Display
media
Layout
flex-row-3-9

Playlist »Femmes4Music« – Jennifer Higdon

Import ID
r17_faq:1057115
Admin Title
D7 Paragraph: r17_faq / GPC_ID: 122591
Display
list-accordion
Layout
undefined
Import ID
r17_faq:1057115:gpc_content.field_gpc_cntnr_hd_rl_gpc_cntnt
Admin Title
D7 Paragraph: r17_faq / GPC_ID: 122592
Display
default
Layout
default-12

Kaija Saariaho

Import ID
r17_faq:1065237
Admin Title
D7 Paragraph: r17_faq / GPC_ID: 122643
Display
list-accordion
Layout
undefined
Import ID
r17_faq:1065237:gpc_content.field_gpc_cntnr_hd_rl_gpc_cntnt
Admin Title
D7 Paragraph: r17_faq / GPC_ID: 122644
Display
default
Layout
default-12

Disclaimer

  1. Import ID
    r17_faq_item:1065236
    Admin Title
    D7 Paragraph: r17_faq_item / GPC_ID: 122645
    Display
    default
    Layout
    default-12

    Links to external websites of other providers

    The ZKM’s express objective is the accuracy and current relevance of any information it makes available on this web site. Mistakes and ambiguities cannot, however, be fully excluded. For this reason, the ZKM is unable to fully guarantee the current relevance, accuracy, completeness or quality of the information it makes available. The ZKM is not subject to coercible legal rules and regulations and to any kind of damages of a material or immaterial nature that may possibly be caused by the use or non-use of the information provided, including free downloads. The ZKM reserves the right to change or delete, to temporarily or permanently suspend access to the web sites at any time.

    The responsibility for »external content« to which access is made, in the form of e.g., links, presupposes, among other things, positive knowledge of illegal or punishable content. The ZKM has no influence on this external content and entirely distances itself from such content. Should the displayed external web site include unlawful or offensive content, the ZKM expressly distances itself from such content. When made knowledgeable of such content, the ZKM will deactivate the corresponding link. The same holds for external entries contained in Blogs and discussion forums, links directories, mailing lists and all other forums of databanks operated by the ZKM, the content of which is rendered possible via write access.

    All content of the present web site (texts, images, video stills, videos, audios, graphics etc.), the structure as well as the layout of this web site is protected by copyright. These contents, and the information made available by the ZKM (e.g., text and image materials) are available exclusively for individual usage by users of this web site, and not for commercial purposes. These contents may be distributed and copied, made public on the Internet and used for commercial purposes only with the prior consent of the ZKM. Similarly, the placing of deep links, inline links, frame links or similar links in which the ZKM web site is not clearly evident as source, is permitted only with the prior consent of the ZKM. Messages and references to content »share« in social media (e.g. Facebook) do not come under the proviso of this reserve approval. For press releases and photographs valid instructions for usage can be found at: www.zkm.de/en/press/service.

    All labels and trademarks named and protected by third parties are subject to the unreserved stipulations of the respective registered owners. That trademarks are not protected by third part rights cannot be assumed merely by mention of the name.

    This disclaimer is to be understood as part of the ZKM’s Internet content. In so far as part or single formulations of this text do not, are no longer or are do not entirely correspond to this legal provision, the remaining parts of this document remain unaffected in its content and validity.

Import ID
r17_text:1057113
Admin Title
D7 Paragraph: r17_text / GPC_ID: 122598
Layout
flex-row-9-3 reverse

Korvat auki is directed against the conservative Finnish music business of the 1970s, when mainly neo-romantic composers received commissions for large operas. The students around Korvat auki, on the other hand, are interested in works of the avant-garde, which they learn about through their composition teacher Paavo Heininen at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and they organize concerts and workshops in which they present these works and their own works to the public.

Saariaho continues her studies in Freiburg im Breisgau, with Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber. Her own view of the avant-garde becomes more critical, she finds many works »musically quite boring«. As if shouting the motto »Open your ears!« to the avant-garde now, she finds fault with the fact that compositions often implement concepts that have »nothing to do with the laws of perception,« and that works are »not really handling any musical issues.«

In 1982 Saariaho goes to Paris, to the Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique (IRCAM), the research institute for music and acoustics founded a few years earlier. There she intensively studies the aforementioned laws of perception, which for her are part of the basic tools of composing. At IRCAM there is close exchange with other composers, researchers and developers. Saariaho gains insight into the fields of acoustics and psychoacoustics and gets access to the latest research results. She learns programming languages and studies algorithmic composition and electronic sound synthesis. What she learns here in computer music will also influence the way she composes for instruments without computer.

Her first internationally successful work for orchestra and tape, »Verblendungen«, is written, and Saariaho is already applying her newly acquired knowledge. She sets herself the difficult compositional task of beginning the work with the climax and then steadily reducing the volume and musical energy over a period of 14 minutes. To ensure that the flow of the music is not lost in the process, she plans several simultaneous lines of development. For example, the orchestra begins with pitch-oriented sounds and ends with noiselike sounds (in which no exact pitch can be perceived). The tape moves in the opposite direction: it begins with noise and ends with pitch. In spite of all the theory that goes into the piece, however, the final authority for Saariaho always remains her ear, with which she decides whether a note or sound is well placed or needs to be corrected.

Import ID
r17_text:1057212
Admin Title
D7 Paragraph: r17_text / GPC_ID: 122646
Layout
flex-row-9-3 reverse

»Femmes4Music« – female composers in focus

As in video art, women are still far from being sufficiently visible in music. Yet sound art in particular, whose boundaries to performance and conceptual art are fluid, has produced many outstanding female artists. With »Femmes4Music«, ZKM presents female composers born between the 1940s and 1960s whose works have achieved great international renown. 

Online in Livestream
Sundays on November 20 / 27 and December 4 / 11 starting at 7 pm

Import ID
r17_text:1057213
Admin Title
D7 Paragraph: r17_text / GPC_ID: 122647
Layout
flex-row-9-3 reverse

Higdon is one of the most frequently performed contemporary classical music composers in America today. More than 200 performances of her works are recorded each year. Since its premiere in 2000, »blue cathedral« has become the most frequently performed contemporary orchestral work, with more than 650 performances worldwide.

The success is astonishing, since Higdon's musical career began quite late. Her parents are hippies. Her father, Charles »Kenny« Higdon, works as a freelance artist for advertising agencies. Avant-garde film, art and theater are part of her childhood in Atlanta. »I was the odd one out because it was a rock ’n’ roll household and I decided to go into classical music when my mom brought me a flute from a pawn shop.« She teaches herself to play the flute at 15, studies flute at Bowling Green State University with Judith Bentley at 18, and creates her first compositions at the age of 21. Her very first composition is a two-minute piece for flute and piano called »Night Creatures«. She develops a fondness for American masters such as Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland, some of whom seem to be quoted in her own works. To this day, she intensively follows the work of colleagues, including, for example, Du Yun, Kristin Kuster, Joan Tower, Caroline Shaw, Ginastera, and listens to 300 to 500 new works a year.

At the Curtis Institute of Music, she studied with US composers Ned Rorem and David Loeb, among others, and has been a professor of composition there since 1994. After receiving her diploma, she successfully completed her doctorate in composition at the University of Pennsylvania under the tutelage of composer George Crumb. Both the Hartt School and Bowling Green State University have awarded her honorary doctorates.

To date, she has received numerous awards, including in 2018 both the Eddie Medora King Award from the University of Texas and the Nemmers Prize from Northwestern University, which is given to contemporary classical composers with outstanding achievements who have influenced the field of composition in significant ways.

Author: Dominique Theise

Import ID
r17_text:1057116
Admin Title
D7 Paragraph: r17_text / GPC_ID: 122601
Layout
flex-row-9-3 reverse

Composers of the series »Femmes4Music«
Meredith Monk (*1942 in New York City, USA)
Kaija Saariaho (*1952 in Helsinki, Finland † 2. June 2023, Paris, France)
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (*1939 in Miami, Florida, USA)
Jennifer Higdon (*1962 in Brooklyn, New York, USA)

Imprint

Accompanying program

Footer

ZKM | Center for Art and Media

Lorenzstraße 19
76135 Karlsruhe

+49 (0) 721 - 8100 - 1200
info@zkm.de

Organization

Dialog