Two Nights Of Performances Celebrating Composer Gerard Grisey At CalArts Theatre 4/30 & 5/1

In a revelatory two-night showcase this spring, REDCAT celebrates the long-lasting legacy of French iconoclast, Gérard Grisey. Performed by CalArts New Century Players and the CalArts Orcheastra under the direction of Mark Menzies, Les Espaces Acoustiques and Beyond: New Music after Grisey is presented on Friday April 30, 2010 and May 1, 2010 at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater. Curtain for the performances is 8:30pm.

To open the series of concerts Gérard Grisey's magnum opus, Les Espaces Acoustiques, will receive its first-ever U.S. performance in its entirety, on April 30, 2010 at REDCAT. The six-part cycle, written between 1974 and 1985, became a touchstone for spectralism, a movement that sought to reconnect music with the full spectrum of sound, from consonance to noise. Pioneered by Grisey and Tristan Murail of the collective L'Itinéraire, this genre notably re-conceived harmonic space in terms of sonic timbre and used electronic music techniques to manipulate live acoustic performance.

Gérard Grisey: Les Espaces Acoustiques
Fri Apr 30 | 8:30pm

The second concert follows with works by other composers influenced by Grisey and spectralism, with compositions by Thierry Alla, Philippe Hurel, Tristan Murail and Gérard Pesson (all from France), Rozalie Hirs (Netherlands), Rand Steiger and James Tenney (USA), and Wolfgang von Schweinitz (Germany).

New Music after Grisey
Sat May 1 | 8:30pm

Program (in program order)
Philippe Hurel: Tombeau in memoriam Gérard Grisey, piano and percussion
Tristan Murail: Transsahara express, bassoon and piano
Gérard Pesson: Cinq chansons, voice and ensemble
Thierry Alla: tape piece tba
Gérard Pesson: Nebenstück (d'après la quatrième Ballade op.10 de Johannes Brahms), clarinet and string quartet
Wolfgang von Schweinitz: Plainsound Brass Trio
Rozalie Hirs: Zenit uur nul, string quartet
Rand Steiger: awhirl, piano solo with electronics
Philippe Hurel: Kits, electric bass and percussion sextet
James Tenney: Clang, orchestra

Les Espaces Acoustiques and Beyond: New Music after Grisey is funded in part by the French-American Fund for Contemporary Music, a program of FACE, with major support from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, SACEM, Cultures France, and the Florence Gould Foundation.

Les Espaces Acoustiques and Beyond: New Music after Grisey is presented at REDCAT on Friday, April 30, 2010 and Saturday, May 1, 2010 at 8:30 pm. Tickets are $20 ($16 for students with current I.D.) and are available at www.redcat.org or by calling 213-237-2800. REDCAT is located at the corner of W. 2nd and Hope Streets, inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex (631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012).

www.redcat.org/event/les-espaces-acoustiques

Gérard Grisey was born in Belfort, France on 17 June 1946. He studied at the Trossingen Conservatory in Germany from 1963 to 1965 before entering the Conservatoire de Paris. Here he won prizes for piano accompaniment, harmony, counterpoint, fugue and composition (studying under Olivier Messiaen from 1968 to 1972). During this period, he also studied with Henri Dutilleux at the Ecole Normale de Musique (1968), as well as summer schools at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena (1969), and in Darmstadt with György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis in 1972.

Grisey won the highly coveted Prix de Rome and stayed at the Villa Medici in Rome from 1972 to 1974, and in 1973 founded a group called L'itinéraire with Tristan Murail, Roger Tessier and Michael Levinas, later to be joined by Hugues Dufourt. Dérives, Périodes, and Partiels were among the first pieces of spectral music. In 1974-75, he studied acoustics with Emile Leipp at the Paris VI University, and in 1980 became a trainee at the IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique). In the same year he went to Berlin as a guest of the D.A.A.D., and afterwards left for the University of California, Berkeley, where he was appointed professor of theory and composition (1982-1986). After returning to Europe, he taught composition at the Conservatoire de Paris, and held numerous composition seminars in France (Centre Acanthes, Lyon, Paris) and abroad (Darmstadt, Freiburg, Milan, Reggio Emilia, Oslo, Helsinki, Malmö, Göteborg, Los Angeles, Stanford, London, Moscow, Madrid, etc.) Gérard Grisey died at the age of 52 in Paris on 11 November 1998.

Among his works, most of which were commissioned by famous institutions and international instrumental groups, are Dérives 1974, Jour, contre-jour 1979, Tempus ex machina 1979, Les chants de l'amour 1984, Talea 1986, Le temps et l'écume 1989, Le noir de I'etoile 1990, L'icône paradoxale 1994, Les espaces acoustiques (a cycle consisting of six pieces), Vortex temporum 1995 and Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil 1998.

Opened by CalArts in 2003, REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) introduces diverse audiences, students and artists to the most influential developments in the arts from around the world, and gives artists in this region the creative support they need to achieve national and international stature. REDCAT is the newest partner in an international network of adventurous art and performance centers, which together are playing a vital role in the evolution of contemporary culture. REDCAT is a center for experimentation, discovery and lively civic discourse. For more information, visit www.redcat.org.

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