One page pieces
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One Page Pieces is a production of Zwerm, in collaboration with deSingel and the support of the Flemish Government.
Concept & development: Zwerm and Eric Thielemans. Live music ZWERM and Eric Thielemans. Special guests: Matthias Koole and Bertel Schollaert. Sound design & sound engineer: Marc Dedecker. Special thanks to Thomas Moore. |
The second cd of Zwerm contains a collection of one page pieces by North American composers.
The "one-page piece" is a written-down musical composition that fits on a single piece of paper. Zwerm and their collaborators took full advantage of the opportunity to create their own scores out of the one-page pieces, to allow their own creativity and compositional ideas to run free, to explore interesting sound worlds, and to seek out possible links between the pieces. These positive experiences are inherent to the format of the one-page piece: a composer provides a musical idea, in traditional notation, prose, graphics, or some combination of all three; sometimes this idea is rough or conceptual, sometimes more clear in its musical content and process. The rest is up to the musicians. Collaborative brainstorming is necessary, and many ideas might be tried out before settling on a particular way of realizing the piece; often, the possibilities seem endless, limited only by one's conventional training, adherence to idiomatic instrumental techniques, and musical sensibilities. This collaborative brainstorming works best when the ensemble is made up of adventurous musicians who trust each other.
One-page pieces fall into the category of process pieces. With roots in the history of American experimental music, both process pieces and one-page pieces are sometimes traced back to Terry Riley's minimalist masterpiece In C of 1964. The recordings on this CD represent a crossover project in which Zwerm looks for connections between the sound worlds of blues, free improvisation, experimental rock, noise, minimalism, and many other contemporary musical ideas.
Released on New World Records and premiered at deSingel, Antwerp in October 2013.
The "one-page piece" is a written-down musical composition that fits on a single piece of paper. Zwerm and their collaborators took full advantage of the opportunity to create their own scores out of the one-page pieces, to allow their own creativity and compositional ideas to run free, to explore interesting sound worlds, and to seek out possible links between the pieces. These positive experiences are inherent to the format of the one-page piece: a composer provides a musical idea, in traditional notation, prose, graphics, or some combination of all three; sometimes this idea is rough or conceptual, sometimes more clear in its musical content and process. The rest is up to the musicians. Collaborative brainstorming is necessary, and many ideas might be tried out before settling on a particular way of realizing the piece; often, the possibilities seem endless, limited only by one's conventional training, adherence to idiomatic instrumental techniques, and musical sensibilities. This collaborative brainstorming works best when the ensemble is made up of adventurous musicians who trust each other.
One-page pieces fall into the category of process pieces. With roots in the history of American experimental music, both process pieces and one-page pieces are sometimes traced back to Terry Riley's minimalist masterpiece In C of 1964. The recordings on this CD represent a crossover project in which Zwerm looks for connections between the sound worlds of blues, free improvisation, experimental rock, noise, minimalism, and many other contemporary musical ideas.
Released on New World Records and premiered at deSingel, Antwerp in October 2013.
