Friday, 6/15

OpenSound continues its collaboration with the Somerville Arts Council in presenting the cutting edge in contemporary experimental music at Union Square’s Third Life Studio.
 
April 6:  a day that will live in infamy.  Charles Curtis explores the far-reaches of “hidden sound” with the new 65-minute work Naldjorlak, written for him by legendary minimalist Eliane Radigue.  Opening up, New York’s Nate Wooley and former Boston resident Tucker Dulin team up with a quartet of Boston illuminaries.
 

Charles Curtis studied at Juilliard under Harvey Shapiro and Leonard Rose. Since the early eighties he has pursued a dual path, working in the worlds of experimental rock and sound art while continuing as a highly respected performer of the traditional cello repertoire. In 1983 he was a founding member of the ground-breaking poetry-rock group King Missile, and he appeared in the downtown New York rock scene with groups such as You Suck, Dogbowl, Borbetomagus and Bongwater, on record and in live shows. In1985 he was awarded the Gregor Piatigorsky Prize of the New York Cello Society, and was appointed to the faculty of Princeton University. In 1987 he began a long and fruitful relationship with La Monte Young, becoming director of the Theatre of Eternal Music String Ensemble and giving premières of Young's work throughout the world. He also established an ongoing practice of experimentation with sound, electronics and improvisation, originally with composer/performer Michael J. Schumacher as Dual, and later leading his own groups combining experimental rock with spoken texts and sine wave environments. From 1989 until 2000 he was first solo cellist of the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra of Hamburg, and he has appeared as soloist with major conductors and orchestras worldwide. Currently Curtis is Professor of Contemporary Music Performance at the University of California, San Diego.
 
Recently Curtis has premiered solo works made expressly for him by La Monte Young, Alvin Lucier and Eliane Radigue. This summer he will premiere a new concerto for cello and orchestra by Lucier at the Ostrava New Music Days in the Czech Republic. Curtis also collaborates regularly with painter/filmmaker Raha Raissnia, making gallery works in Paris and New York and performing live sound/projection pieces.
  
Naldjorlak (2005) , by Eliane Radigue
for solo cello
65 minutes
 
Created in close collaboration with Charles Curtis, Naldjorlak is the first entirely acoustic composition by a composer who has pioneered pure electronic sound for over thirty years. Delicate in its dynamic range, the work explores highly diffuse bowed textures that defy perceptual focus; the hidden, untamed ur-sonority of the cello is revealed as a deeply unstable and complex source. The Tibetan title refers to the motion of all life toward unity; in a seamlessly interwoven three-part structure, the audible shape mirrors the geography of the cello.
 
The New York Times describes Eliane Radigue's music as "a steady stream of sonic activity taking place right at the edge of one's perception". Qualities of intense concentration, focus, and selflessness inform the spirituality of all of Radigue's work.
 
 
More information is available on the web:
http://www.timfeeney.com/opensound.html
 
Contact: Lou  Bunk 617.650.2065