Playing electric guitar with Talea Ensemble:
Talea Ensemble performs
Fausto Romitelli: An Index of Metals (2003)
Donatienne Michel-Dansac, soprano
Darmstadt 2012
July 19, 2012
10 PM
Centralstation, Darmstadt
Fausto Romitelli: An Index of Metals (2003)
Video by Norbert Pfaffenbichler *World Premiere
Donatienne Michel-Dansac, soprano
***CD Release Preview of Anamorphosis: Music by Fausto Romitelli on Tzadik. Be the first to get a copy!
Alex Woods, violin
Elizabeth Weisser, viola
Chris Gross, cello
Daria Binkowski, flute
Nick Masterson, oboe
Rane Moore, clarinet
Jeff Missal, trumpet
William Lang, trombone
Oren Fader, electric guitar
Greg Chudzik, electric bass
Steven Beck, piano/keyboard
Alex Lipowski, percussion
Ryan Streber, electronics
James Baker, conductor
At week’s end, Talea departs for what should be a very memorable week at the Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt (IMD). Home to the experimental music festival with perhaps the most storied past, the IMD remains a vital and important place for musical and verbal dialogue amongst a wide array of soloists, ensembles, composers, and scholars who travel from all corners of the globe to present their work. It is an honor for Talea to be invited as one of this year’s featured ensembles and to present a pair of concerts.
On July 19, Talea revisits Fausto Romitelli’s An Index of Metals, after a memorable performance of it at last year’s Bang on a Can Marathon in New York. This “video-opera” is a meditation on the dizzying effects of synesthesia and sensory overload. Contemporary music, Romitelli claimed, is all too often appreciated on a purely analytical level, whereas “An Index of Metals aims to take possession of the body with its over exposition of senses and pleasure.” Throughout great stretches of the work, one hears processes of distortion, accumulation, and saturation, as well as sound “glitches” used towards expressive ends. Romitelli also relies on very traditional modes of affect, updating them with modern sonic signifiers from the worlds of experimental and popular musics, whose boundaries are purposely confused and blended. The renowned new music vocalist Donatienne Michel-Dansac sings the demanding solo part, and a newly created video by Norbert Pfaffenbichler enhances the total sensory experience.
-Anthony Cheung, Artistic Director
This engagement is supported by the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation through USArtists International in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.