A work by Vinko Globokar
For the second creation of a new work by theensemble]h[iatus, its members wanted to appeal to a singular composer and trombonist who remained an extraordinary instrumentalist and for whom improvisation has always been at the heart of musical practice. It is used in his work to allow us to question the place of the musician and the listener, to shake up the certainties both instrumental and cultural. Some pieces are even flattening the behavioral patterns of musicians and their consequences for the public.
The questions arise: When you improvise, should you react to what the other plays? Should we continue his own speech? What is the impulse to play rather than not play? Are we stimulated by external elements? Are we obliged to follow one information rather than another? In the end, is there any real communication between us? Simple but essential questions that appear to any improviser and reveal a reflection on authority and autonomy, reflection that goes beyond the artistic framework.
Damdaj is composed of 17 paintings chaining like so many improvisation proposals and in which the constraints imposed playfully decorate the acts and gestures of the musicians and force them to invent constantly ways to hear, to hear – in the social sense of the term – and to behave. Based on texts, extra-European melodies or other materials of their own, a whole musical and theatrical vocabulary is deployed in a kind of sound festival in turn toning and subtle.
Concert recording at the Alter Feuerwache in Cologne (Germany) on September 12, 2010.
ensemble]h[iatus
With Martine Altenburger, Tiziana Bertoncini, Isabelle Duthoit, Carl Ludwig Hübsch, Géraldine Keller, Lê Quan Ninh, Thomas Lehn, Thierry Madiot, Angelika Sheridan