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The Body Electric
Electronica
Chesterfield, VA
Date and Time
Monday, March 26th, 2012
9:00pm
Details
The Body Electric - Michael Norris Chris Black persona elemental for solo performer and electronics
Michael Norris De Corporis Fabbrica for solo/amplified clarinet and visuals
John Coulter Mouthpiece for solo voice and visuals
John Croft ...mit schwarzem Glanz for viola and electronics
Interval
Dugal McKinnon Nowdrifts for solo clarinet and fixed media
Alexandra Hay QuantityNameDescriber (2011) for voice, clarinet, cello and electronics
Leading young New Zealand composers explore concepts of body and space in a programme of experimental works for live performers with multi-media, curated by Michael Norris.
"New Zealanders often have a particularly 'open' sense of bodily space. We like hills, mountains and “green” spaces as delimiting points for our urban areas - indeed, they sometimes seem essential for our wellbeing. These images, concerns and ideas are explored here by a younger generation of New Zealand composers who have abandoned the country's Romantic search for musical representations of landscape, and instead are reflecting upon increasingly personal engagements with concepts of space, memory and body.
Composers have to consider the body while negotiating the physical act of interpreting a musical score. This bodily space is then placed in juxtaposition to the wider 'virtual' space presented through the electric reproduction of electronic sounds by a bank of loudspeakers. By amplifying acoustic instruments, we highlight the innate physicality - air noise, saliva, muscular movement and tension become more 'present' as driving forces within the music."
Curators note. Michael Norris