As a child Alvin Curran would stay up late listening to the
ship horns outside his bedroom window in the port town of Providence, Rhode
Island. But instead of thinking of Moby Dick he dreamed of making music with
the sounds. Curran is now renowned as one of America’s most eclectic composers.
Based in Italy he continues to draw on sounds from the natural world in his
compositions. Curran is composer-in-residence for the Totally Huge New MusicFestival (August 9th-18th) and several of his pieces will
be performed across the ten-day new music extravaganza.
“Anything that is resonant is my instrument,” explains
Curran. “It could be a primitive ram’s horn, electronics, walking through
puddles or the sound of a thousand tubas. It is not a mash up or a remix, it
has evolved out of my own DNA.”
Curran’s broad approach to contemporary classical music perfectly
suits the experimental festival which is masterminded by the all-embracing Tura
New Music. The headline artists include Italian electronics composer Agostino
Di Scipio, Japanese deconstructed pop artist Haco, UK’s David Toop, Australia’s
figurehead of experimental music Warren Burt, Robin Fox, Michael Kieran Harvey
and ensembles Speak Percussion, Decibel and Clocked Out Duo.
The impressive list of international artists is thanks in
part to the International Computer Music Conference which is being held in
Perth this year. The conference is the pre-eminent annual gathering for
computer music practitioners from around the world and is expected to attract hundreds
of international artists to Perth during August.
Over the course of his career Curran – who is one of the
keynote speakers at the conference - has witnessed the overwhelming impact the
electronics and computer music has made on music culture.
“I have bridged nearly fifty years in electronic music
making from the early synthesiser and tape to this brave new world of digital
electronics. You know, I’m sick of learning new machines,” he laughs.
He believes electronics has become the meeting place of
popular and unpopular (experimental) music and is forming a new musical genre. Curran’s
keynote address for the conference will explore the history of electronics and
make some daring predictions about the future.
“Soon there will be internet concert halls and microchip
enhancement of musicians,” he says. “I’m serious!”
And Curran could well be the one to make it happen. His
latest commission is a double piano concerto which draws on music contributed
form the iPhones of people in the audience. Curran’s extensive catalogue of
works defies categorisation and includes pieces for radio, solo works, large
scale choreographed pieces, sound installations and theatre works.
Yet for all his eclecticism Curran’s entry into music making
was fairly traditional. He played trombone in jazz bands and studied
composition at Yale School of Music with Elliott Carter. He then moved his base to Europe
and ended up co-founding, with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, the
radical collective Musica Elettronica Viva. He counts as colleagues people like
John Cage, Pauline
Oliveros, Earl Brown, Milton Babbit, Steve Reich, Morton Feldman, Robert Moog,
La Monte Young and Giacinto Scelsi.
Curran
has had several teaching posts around the world but he and his wife have
remained based in Rome where Curran’s rooftop vegetable garden overlooks the Colosseum.
“Culturally,
politically and economically Italy has been in a continuous and dangerous slide
for the last 25 years. But I don’t have anything to lose anymore, I’ve done my
career. And this city has been here 2000 years which gives a sense of
permanence to the chaos and change.”
These
days when he composes Curran’s inspiration comes from simply being alive and
having work to do.
“I want
to continue making music that makes me happy and that others can enjoy. Music
can transport you; it’s like a transport system.” He continues the analogy with
a chuckle: “You pay a ticket and get on and if it’s good you go with it. That’s
what I do, I transport people and things!”
He has written a piece for Decibel ensemble which he
describes as Alvin Curran minimalism, “a kind of virtuoso chamber piece”. Way
Out Back will be premiered Sunday 11th August at Hacket Hall
alongside works by other ICMC keynote speakers.
Curran is a keen exponent of taking music out of the concert
hall and performances of two of his works will take place at Victoria Quay,
Fremantle in the final weekend of the festival. BEAMS (2005) is Curran at his
most avant-garde and requires 35 musicians, a chorus, basketballs, bass drums
and metal objects.
“This piece is a form of provocation that leads to delight,”
Curran says mysteriously. “For example the instrumentalists have to roll on the
floor while playing. It is written in the spirit of randomness and pure fun and
invites the public to be part of it.”
Maritime Rites is an iconic outdoor piece which has been
performed in rivers, lakes and ports around the world since it was first
created in 1979. The Fremantle version will feature Curran performing a sixty
minute midi-keyboard improvisation in the Victoria Quay B Shed. He has also
requested a ‘sail by’ of a rock band on a boat. Curran will be drawing on
thousands of digital samples of ship horns, signal bells and other related
sounds including recordings of the ship horns outside his bedroom window that
first inspired him all those years ago.
Totally Huge New Music Festival August 9th-18th
More details tura.com.au
No comments:
Post a Comment