My Music Language- Ferneyhough’s Lecture (Free access!)
Time: 10:00, Wednesday 28 September 2011
Venue: Room 416, North Building, Shanghai Conservatory of Music
What is music and what is it for? Art in general seems to be a basic quality of being human. One might as well ask, ‘Why breathe?’ As to what it’s for: off the cuff I can only suggest that it serves to keep the tenuous lines of communication open between different areas of ourselves. (Brian Ferneyhough)
Complexity and Expressivity-Concert Portrait of Ferneyhough
Time: 19:15, Wednesday 28 September 2011
Venue: He Luting Concert Hall, Shanghai Conservatory of Music
Conductor: Jurjen Hempel
Performance: The Nieuw Ensemble
Piccolo: Michael-Alexander Schmid
Bass Flute: Michael Alexander Schmid
Oboe: Ernest Rombout
Clarinet/Bass Clarinet: Ernesto Molinari
Piano: John Snijders
Violin: Emi Ohi Resnick
Cello: Robert Putowsk
Double bass: Robartus Dirksen
Percussion: Hermanus Halewijn
Program:
Coloratura: (1966) for oboe and piano
Lemma, Icon, Epigram: (1981) for piano solo 14’
Time and Motion Study I (1971-1977) for bass clarinet solo 9’
Mnemosyne (1986) for solo bass flute and pre-recorded (also precomposed) tape 11’
In Nomine à 3 (2001) for piccolo, oboe and c1arinet 2’
La Chute d’Icare (1988) for eight instruments 10’
Box office:
Room 418, South Building, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, 20 Fengyang Rd, Shanghai, China
Contact person: Miss Wang: 15201923551; Miss Cai: 13816026661
For more information, please visit http://www.shcnmw.com
Brian Ferneyhough
Brian Ferneyhough (born 16 January 1943 in Coventry) studied with Ton de Leeuw in Amsterdam, and later with Klaus Huber in Basel. He became closely associated with the so-called 'New Complexity' school of composition, characterized by its extension of the modernist tendency towards formalization. Ferneyhough's actual compositional approach, however, rejects serialism and other 'generative' methods of composing; he prefers instead to use systems only to create material and formal constraints, while their realization appears to be more spontaneous. Unlike many more formally inclined composers, Ferneyhough often speaks of his music as being about creating energy and excitement rather than embodying an abstract scheme.
His scores impose huge technical demands on performers – sometimes creating parts that are so detailed they are literally impossible to realize completely. Contrary to the widespread belief that Ferneyhough is merely attempting to tie down interpretative possibilities by stipulating everything with such precision, the purpose here is to give the performer creative freedom in deciding which aspects to focus on, which elements may be omitted and so on.
Numerous performers have refused to take his works into their repertoire because of the great commitment required to learn them and a perception that similar effects can be achieved through improvisation. The compositions have, however, attracted a number of advocates, among them the Arditti String Quartet and the members of the Nieuw Ensemble. The Nieuw Ensemble premiered his first opera, Shadowtime, based on the life of the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, in Munich on 25 May 2004, with subsequent performances in Paris, New York, London and Bochum.
Conductor: Jurjen Hempel
Jurjen Hempel studied conducting with David Porcelijn and Kenneth Montgomery at the Utrecht Conservatory. Already during his studies he was invited to assist Edo de Waart, Hans Vonk and David Robertson. On invitation of Seiji Ozawa, he studied at the Tanglewood Conducting Class where he worked with Bernard Haitink and Lorin Maazel.
An important recognition of his already distinguished career at that time was when he was finalist and prize-winner at the first Sibelius Conductors Competition in May 1996 in Helsinki. His reputation as a conductor of contemporary music leads him to work on a regular base with ensembles as London Sinfonietta, the Asko Ensemble, the Nieuw Ensemble, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Ensemble Contrechamps in Geneva, the Schšnberg Ensemble, and Orkest de Volharding. He is also Chef-conductor with the Netherlands Youth Orchestra. In the spring of 2004 he has conducted the long awaited opera Shadowtime by Brian Ferneyhough at the Munich Biennale. Later to be seen in Paris, London and New York.
In 2005 Hempel has been appointed Music Director of the Geneva based ensemble Contrechamps. He is the first to hold this position in the ensemble's 25-year-old history. In August of 2005 he made his debut at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In 2006 he has conducted Don Giovanni with the Opera Zuid company.
The Nieuw Ensemble was founded in 1980 in Amsterdam. It has a unique instrumental structure, using plucked instruments such as mandolin, guitar and harp in combination with wind, string and percussion. Ed Spanjaard has been the principal conductor since 1982. Highly successful programmes have been those dedicated to the work of a single composer, such as Berio, Boulez, Carter, Donatoni, Ferneyhough, Kagel, De Leeuw, Kurtág, Loevendie and Nono.
In 1998 the Nieuw Ensemble and its artistic director Joël Bons were awarded the Prince Bernhard Fund Music Prize for their ‘markedly lively and adventurous programming which can be described as groundbreaking, both in the literal and figurative senses of the word’. Since 1991, programmes featuring new works written especially for the ensemble by Chinese composers such as Tan Dun, Qu Xiaosong, Xu Shuya, Chen Qigang and Guo Wenjing have attracted wide attention. In 1997, the group toured China with concerts in Shanghai and Beijing.
The Nieuw Ensemble now enjoys a firm international standing. It has performed in festivals such as the Venice Biennale, Settembre Musica, Ars Musica in Brussels, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Musica Strasbourg, Holland Festival, Warsaw Autumn, Huddersfield Festival, Agora, Stockholm New Music and the Festival d’Automne à Paris.
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