Zeitgeist's Early Music Festival 2015
stockhausen
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April 23-26, 2015
(schedule below) Studio Z: 275 East Fourth Street, Suite 200, St. Paul $10 Thursday, Friday and Sunday $20 Saturday (includes one or both performances) |
Zeitgeist’s 5th Annual Early Music Festival explores the powerful contributions of our musical pioneers with a celebration of composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. One of the 20th century’s great visionaries, Stockhausen’s groundbreaking work in electronic and spatial music embraced new artistic possibilities and made a lasting impact on avant garde and popular music alike. From the Beatles to Björk, Stockhausen's music has influenced musicians of all stripes and continues shape new music today.
As a group of musicians dedicated to the music of our time, Zeitgeist knows the most meaningful expressions of today are informed by the musical contributions of yesterday. The annual Early Music Festival honors that artistic debt with performances of influential and rarely-heard works by 20th century masters. Saturday’s performance includes wine, hors d'oeuvres, and a post-concert reception, plus a second concert at 9 p.m. Enjoy one or both performances for $20.
Tickets can be securely purchased by credit card or through your PayPal account in advance, or by cash, check, or credit card at the door. Tickets purchased online will be held at the door.
Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007) started composing in the early 1950s. Already the first compositions of "Point Music" such as KREUZSPIEL (CROSS-PLAY) in 1951, SPIEL (PLAY) for orchestra in 1952, and KONTRA-PUNKTE (COUNTER-POINTS) in 1952/53, brought Stockhausen international fame. Fundamental achievements in music since 1950 are indelibly imprinted through his compositions: The "Serial Music", the "Point Music", the "Electronic Music", the "New Percussion Music", the "Variable Music", the "New Piano Music", the "Space Music", "Statistical Music", "Aleatoric Music", "Live Electronic Music"; new syntheses of "Music and Speech", of a "Musical Theatre", of a "Ritual Music", "Scenic Music"; the "Group Composition", polyphonic "Process Composition", " Moment Composition", "Formula Composition" to "Multi-Formula Composition"; the integration of "found objects" (national anthems, folklore of all countries, short-wave events, "sound scenes", etc.) into a "World Music" and a "Universal Music"; the synthesis of European, African, Latin American and Asian music into a "Telemusic"; the vertical " Octophonic Music".
Stockhausen's entire oeuvre can be classified as "Spiritual Music"; this becomes more and more evident not only in the compositions with spiritual texts, but also in the other works of "Overtone Music", "Intuitive Music", "Mantric Music", reaching "Cosmic Music" such as STIMMUNG (TUNING), AUS DEN SIEBEN TAGEN (FROM THE SEVEN DAYS), MANTRA, STERNKLANG (STAR SOUND), INORI, ATMEN GIBT DAS LEBEN (BREATHING GIVES LIFE), SIRIUS, LICHT (LIGHT), KLANG (SOUND). From 1977 to 2003 he composed the cycle of operas LICHT (LIGHT), The Seven Days of the Week, which comprises about 29 hours of music. All of the seven parts of this music-theatre work have had their staged world premières: DONNERSTAG (THURSDAY) in 1981, SAMSTAG (SATURDAY) in 1984, and MONTAG (MONDAY) in 1988, all three produced by the Teatro alla Scala in Milan; DIENSTAG (TUESDAY) in 1993 and FREITAG (FRIDAY) in 1996, both at the Leipzig Opera, SONNTAG (SUNDAY) in 2011, at the Cologne Opera. With MITTWOCH (WEDNESDAY), the Birmingham Opera Company presented the last day of the LICHT heptalogy on Wednesday, August 22nd 2012. After LICHT, Stockhausen intended to compose the hours of the day, the minute and the second. He began the cycle KLANG (SOUND), The 24 Hours of the Day, and until his death in December 2007, he composed the 1st Hour HIMMELFAHRT (ASCENSION) to the 21st Hour PARADIES (PARADISE).
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