Programma MicroFest

Concert 1 | 11.00 – 12.00 uur | SCALA’s Spectrum

During the opening concert of MicroFest Amsterdam 2015, a one-day festival for microtonal music, Ensemble SCALA kicks off with a programme full of premieres. New works by Danny de Graan, Eric Verbugt, and the German composer Joachim Schneider frame several short compositions performed by smaller ensembles. Also on the programme is a reprise of Scala I by Peter Adriaansz, who will receive the Matthijs Vermeulen Prize in December for his composition Scala II, based on Scala I. The wide sonic palette of Ensemble SCALA, featuring the Fokker organ as part of its instrumentation, will be explored in all its diversity throughout the concert. How, for instance, do the overtones of a flute or a clarinet sound, or the microtones on a viola or guitar? All these questions will be answered in an adventurous and musically compelling manner.

Ensemble SCALA is a microtonal music ensemble in the Netherlands, initiated by the Huygens-Fokker Foundation (centre for microtonal music) in 2010. A special feature of the ensemble is the inclusion of the renowned Fokker organ. The musicians are all specialists in contemporary music, collectively exploring the colourful boundaries of microtonality. Over the past five years, the ensemble has built a broad repertoire of works by composers from the Netherlands and abroad, each employing a very different compositional style. With unconventional tunings as its focus, Ensemble SCALA engages with the growing global interest among composers in microtonality as a new means of musical expression.

Ensemble SCALA consists of Raymond Honing (flute), Michel Marang (clarinet), Manuel Visser (viola), Stefan Gerritsen (31-tone guitar), Anne Veinberg (keyboards), Ere Lievonen (Fokker organ), and Glenn Liebaut (percussion).

Programme

Danny de Graan (1973) – In the Blink of an Eye (2015) premiere

Nicola Vicentino (1511-c.1576) – III. Dolce mio ben (1555)
IV. Madonna, il poco dolce (1555)

Peter Adriaansz (1966) – Scala I (2012/2013)

Eric Verbugt (1966) – earth (2015) premiere

Giovanni Battista Orazi (?-1804) – Grave & Allegro, from Trio I (1797)
arr. Ere Lievonen (2015)

Joachim F.W. Schneider (1970) – Unruh (2015) premiere

NB. The works by Peter Adriaansz and Danny de Graan were made possible with financial support from the Dutch Performing Arts Fund (Fonds Podiumkunsten).

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Lecture 1 | 01.30 – 02.15 p.m. | Agustín Castilla-Ávila (free entrance)

Agustín Castilla-Ávila, composer, guitarist, and Vice President of the Internationale Gesellschaft für Ekmelische Musik in Austria, will give a lecture-performance on the sixth-tone system he developed for classical guitar. This system uses six equal strings, each tuned to a different sixth-tone, allowing any guitarist to play microtones without needing a special instrument or technique. During the lecture, Castilla-Ávila will present several microtonal guitars and explain why he, as a composer, chose this tuning. An extensive musical demonstration of the capabilities of this microtonal guitar is included, culminating in the premiere of a new work entitled Cuestionart.

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Concert 2 | 03.00 – 04.00 p.m. | Nicola Vicentino, a second life

The visionary 16th century composer and music theorist Nicola Vicentino is famous for his advocacy of an ancient Greek enharmonic mode and the microtonal Archicembalo that he designed for it. Only four of his madrigals survived, of which three are unfinished. The late Bob Gilmore, with Trio Scordatura, asked composers to complete/respond freely to them. The original madrigals will be performed in a Scordatura arrangement together with new compositions by Anne LaBerge, Linda Buckley, John Croft, Lucia D’Errico, Christopher Fox, Yannis Kyriakides, Scott McLaughlin, Hans W. Koch, Juan Felipe Waller and Harald Muenz.

Since its inception in spring 2006, Amsterdam-based new music ensemble trio scordatura has presented exploratory music by a range of contemporary composers and sound artists that looks toward new tuning systems and microtonality as a way of expanding the harmonic vocabulary of music. The basic soundworld of female voice, viola and MIDI keyboard is expanded by other sonorities depending on musical context. Their concerts feature “classics” from the worlds of microtonal and spectral music together with new commissions. Sometimes this crosses over into work in multimedia, involving text, video, dance, and light.

Scordatura consists of: Alfrun Schmid, voice | Elisabeth Smalt, viola | Reinier van Houdt, keyboard | Benjamin Marquise Gilmore, violin | Lucas van Helsdingen, bass clarinet

Programme

Nicola Vicentino (1511-1576) – Dolce mio ben (1555)

Yannis Kyriakides (1969) – poco dolce, molto amaro (2014)

Juan Felipe Waller (1971) – Eidolonian dream (phishing scales) (2015) *

John Croft (1971) – Soave dolc’ardore (2015) *

Nicola Vicentino – Soave dolc’ardore (1555)

Anne La Berge (1955) – Languid Sighs (2014)

Lucia d’Errico (1982) – Madonna il poco dolce (2014) **

Hans Koch (1962) – Il poco dolce (2015) *

Nicola Vicentino – Madonna il poco dolce (1555)

Harald Muenz (1965) – Allo studio con Nicola (2014) **

Scott McLaughlin (1975) – Untitled (for Bob) (2015) *

Christopher Fox (1955) – dolce…pianto (2014)

Linda Buckley (1979) – musica prisca caput (2015) *

Nicola Vicentino – Musica prisca caput (1555)

* premiere / ** NL premiere

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Lecture 2 | 04.30 – 05.15 p.m. | Christopher Fox (free entrance)

The second lecture of the day is a tribute to the recently deceased musicologist Bob Gilmore. The British composer Christopher Fox, who is also Professor of Music at Brunel University London, will discuss what Gilmore contributed to microtonal music, the projects he worked on, and the special instruments he had constructed. The lecture will take a broader perspective by also highlighting the various composers who inspired Gilmore. Among other things, he wrote a biography of the American composer and instrument builder Harry Partch.

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Concert 3 | 08.15 p.m.– 09.30 p.m. | New & old harmonies in 31-tone system

MicroFest Amsterdam 2015 will conclude in the evening in style with a groundbreaking 31-tone project. At the request of conductor, composer, and pianist Fabio Costa from Berlin, the Huygens-Fokker Foundation, as organiser of the MicroFest, has specially formed Vokalprojekt 31 for this festival; a modest ensemble of four singers, accompanied by the unique Fokker organ. Together they will perform music in both meantone tuning and 31-tone tuning in a fascinating manner, in a way that has never been done before.

The programme of this concert features brand-new compositions by Fabio Costa (a modern madrigal and a prelude) and Sander Germanus (a four-minute opera), several madrigals from the Renaissance and early Baroque, as well as various pieces from different stylistic periods, specially arranged for the 31-tone organ. An example of this is the two works by Karg-Elert, now notated in the score with the magical 7th overtone. Fabio Costa about the project: "I am convinced that 31-EDO will gain ever more space, once it is better understood - and heard! It is very exciting to explore this fascinating new territory, with a new tonal, harmonic language right in the 21st century. And I believe the Fokker-Stichting has a great oportunity and a leading role in agglutinating in Amsterdam what is going on in this field worldwide."

Vokalprojekt 31 consists of: Valeria Mignaco (soprano), Alfrun Schmid (alto), Edward Leach (tenor), and Arnout Lems (baritone). The accompaniment for this remarkable project will be provided by the resident Fokker-organist Ere Lievonen.

Programme

Fabio Costa (1971) – Prelude-Meditation (2006/2015) premiere

Nicola Vicentino (1511-c.1576) – Musica prisca caput (1555)

Cipriano De Rore (c.1515-1565) – Ancor che col partire (1547)

Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933) – Blasse Blume, op.102 no.1 (1914)
Profumo sottile del fiore magico, op.101 no.33 (1923)

Sigismondo d’India (1582-1629) – Piangono al pianger mio (1609)

Sander Germanus (1972) – L’ultimo minuto di Donna Maria (2015) premiere

Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613) – Canzon francese

Luca Marenzio (1553-1599) – Madonna, sua mercè, pur una sera (1585)

Nicola Vicentino (1511-1576) – ‘Musica prisca caput’ (1555) premiere
transcription by Ere Lievonen

Fabio Costa (1971) – Aphoristic Madrigal (2015) premiere

NB. Between the programmed works, pianist Anne Veinberg will improvise on the Carrillo piano, which has 97 keys capable of producing 96 tones per octave (from C’ to C”).

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