Other Minds Festival:
OM 12: Panel Discussion & Concert 2

Charles Amirkhanian moderates a panel discussion with the three composers featured in the second concert of the 12th Other Minds Festival. Maja Ratkje, who was too ill to take part in the panel discussion the day before, speaks about her interest in Japanese gagaku music as well as giving a preview of her work with the Norwegian group POING, which features the composer’s extended vocal techniques combined with electronics, saxophones, accordion, and string bass. Joëlle Leandre is French composer and string bass player, who discusses how her interest in sound poetry has influenced her interest in improvisational performance. Per Nørgård, the premiere Danish composer of his time, discusses his piece “Wie ein Kind” , and how it was inspired by Swiss schizophrenic, Adolf Wölfli and German poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

Over the past 50 years, Per Nørgård’s creative activity has engaged the special nature of the Nordic tradition; experimented with serial techniques and other modernist innovations; focused on nuance and mood; and created highly structured hierarchy-based music. “Wie ein Kind (’Like a Child’)”, a work in three movements based on of the most performed classical works in Danish choral music, marks the beginning of a period in Nørgård’s life when he focused on division, contrast, and catastrophe. The composer describes “Wie ein Kind” as a confrontation of “two forms of poetical statement, one of which arose in a tortured, schizophrenic soul (Adolf Wölfli), whereas the other is the product of a highly respected poet (Rainer Maria Rilke).” The three movement work is performed by the celebrated San Francisco based vocal ensemble Volti.

Composer Maja Ratkje appears as a performer, wielding an impressive arsenal of unconventional vocal techniques and electronics. She is joined by POING, one of the leading ensembles for contemporary music in Scandinavia. This unusual trio (accordion, saxophones, bass) has premiered over 40 works by European and Asian composers, one of whom describes the group as musicians who are not only capable of playing the impossible, but who also do so with pleasure.”

Over the past thirty years, French double bassist, composer and improviser Joëlle Leandre, 55, has become one of the dominant figures in new music. She has collaborated with contemporary mavericks Pierre Boulez, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Giacinto Scelsi, and also played alongside jazz and improvisation legends Anthony Braxton, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, and John Zorn. Here she appears with two prolific performers from Germany, Gunda Gottschalk and Xu Fengxia. Their commingling and manipulation of European and Asian traditions through improvisation offer an unusual and singular contribution to the 12th Other Minds Festival.

from OM Festival program guide)