Piano+ 2010 - EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO of the SWR (Concert II)

The EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO of the SWR will present at ZKM works thematizing crossovers of various levels in various ways. For example, in the ca. twelve-minute piece "Ina" for bass flute and six flutes pre-recorded on a cassette recorder, composer  Chaya Czernowin pursues the idea of a composite instrument. A single instrument, here the flutes, are unraveled into individual voices by means of the cassette tape.  The confrontation of a visible soloist with the invisible but practically identical tape sounds streaming in from different directions is a reference to the disparate identities within a single individual. Accordingly, the composition "Ina" is a particular narrative as well as a dramatic element in the play between the soloist and her inner self. 
The contrast between the solid structure of the chord progression on the tape and the soloist are even further intensified in Jonathan Harvey’s "Still": the solo tuba player Klaus Burger plays a pre-given progression of chords, which are furnished with long echoes, to then improvise freely between them without an echo. In this way, a two-level formation arises of echoed background chords and foreground improvisation. In the concluding "Risonanze erranti" by Luigi Nono, lyrical fragments of works by Bachmann and Melville are intensified in their pessimistic attitude through the musical levels. In this music, which has been shattered to fragments and is rife with glaring contrasts (loud – soft, high – low) the audience is left without orientation, as though transposed to a destructive landscape of ruins. 

Detlef Heusinger, artistic director of the concert night was born in Frankfurt/M in 1956. From 1976 to 1980 he studied composition as well as guitar, lute, and piano at the Music Academy Bremen and parallel to that, German and school music at Bremen University. Between 1981 and 1989 further composition studies followed under Hans Werner Henze in Cologne, as well as with Klaus Huber at the University of Music Freiburg, where he also studied the conducting (Francis Travis) and electronic music. At the same time he studied music science at the University of Music in Freiburg under H. H. Eggebrecht, and philosophy. From 1990 to 1998 Heusinger taught at the Music Academy Bremen. In addition to his composing activities, which have meanwhile brought forth an oeuvre that includes practically all genres, he has also been active since 1991 as an opera director in Germany, Poland, Austria, and Switzerland. Among other things, Heusinger was a fellow at the  Villa Massimo in Rome, der Cité de la Musique, and also the Heinrich-Strobel Foundation in Freiburg, now EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO of the SWR.

Concert EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO of the SWR

• Chaya Czernowin »Ina« for bass flute and tape recorder, 1988
• Jonathan Harvey »Still« for tuba and electronics, 1997
• Luigi Nono »Risonanze erranti. Liederzyklus a Massimo Cacciari« for alto flute, bass flute, tuba, percussion, and live electronics, 1986

Susanne Otto alto flute / Roberto Fabbriciani flute Klaus Burger tuba / Percussions de Strasbourg Detlef Heusinger director / live electronic
realization: EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO of the SWR