October 13, 2018, 08:00PM
"Composer Olga Neuwirth’s Lost Highway Suite—derived from her opera of the same name, itself inspired by David Lynch’s cult classic film—evokes a mysterious tone and structure in a concert performance featuring immersive surround sound. Using a 64-speaker Ambisonic dome, built around the audience in the EMPAC Concert Hall, the suite distills Neuwirth’s 2003 opera to its instrumental core. Mixing live performance with electronic sounds that swirl around the listening space, Lost Highway Suite creates a hallucinatory experience not unlike the warped plotline and surreal characters of the Lynch epic. [...] Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth (born 1968) gained international recognition at the age of 22 for two mini-operas based on works of Nobel Prize-winner Elfriede Jelinek. Since then, she’s written several music theater pieces including her first dramatic work, Bählamms Fest (also based on one of Jelinek’s works), The Outcast, American Lulu, and Hommage á Klaus Nomi. [...] International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a 35-member artist collective that explores how new music intersects with communities across the world. Works by emerging composers have anchored ICE’s programming since its founding in 2001, and the group’s recordings and digital platforms highlight the many voices that weave music’s present." (Quote Source)
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ReplyDeleteLost Highway Suite
ReplyDeleteLost Highway Suite is a compositional piece that was performed Saturday, October 13th at 8 pm. It was performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble. The performance used a brand new 64-loudspeaker dome that successfully spreads the sound of the composition throughout the entire concert hall. It allowed for the music of the instruments to be distributed around the room in a very controllable way. This allows for the addition of another aspect of listening, the control of where the sound is being experienced in relation to the listener. This additional level of control of the music makes the music of the ensemble resound even more. The combination of electronic music coupled with the employment of more classical instruments creates a really dynamic, world-spanning feeling to the piece.
The composition is a tonal piece. Unlike a lot of the tonal pieces we have experienced in class, however, it is extremely episodic. I could never let myself get attached to a single soundscape because it would end just as quickly as it started. The piece feels almost as if it is plot driven. It sounded a little bit like I was listening to a 80s Horror Movie that I haven’t seen, but still know the whole entire plot to. It rose and fell over and over again, elegantly switching between moments of supreme elegance followed by hard-hitting, dark pieces of music. Without knowing that how long there was remaining in the piece, I knew that it definitely wasn’t over yet because there had still yet to be the unexpected return of the monster and the successful final overtaking of the beast. It was wonderfully composed for every episode of the composition there was a clear rise and fall and a distinct micro-plot per movement. Each bit utilized unique sets of instruments and the intercutting of the whole ensemble with the soloists created a zoom-in effect that brought focus in and out of the piece creating an interesting effect that would be hard to achieve otherwise.
The piece was beautiful and enjoyable and employed some incredibly fascinating percussive instruments that added a whole new level. While watching this show, I was brought to an interesting question, what does it take to make a piece a classic? This piece was just as enjoyable and flowed equally as well as most of the pieces we have listened to in class, so what would need to happen for this piece to be considered one of the greats. I think it is always a matter of circumstances that will allow for a piece to be considered a classic, there is always some sort of luck that must go along with ingratiating a piece of music into the annals of history. But, there must always be a level of lasting that a piece must require and I do believe that this piece has that. It plays with feelings of fear and intimidation all mixed with the occasional high moments that the classical employment of the instruments provide. There is an undeniable playing with of the feelings of the listeners that is not achieved by all of the pieces we have listened to in class. The coupling of the unique sound-system with the beautiful composition creates an entire story of sound that is incomparable to anything I have yet to hear.