Les Espaces Acoustiques And Beyond: New Music After Grisey April 30, 2010

“We are musicians and our model is sound not literature, sound not mathematics, sound not theater, visual arts, quantum physics, geology, astrology or acupuncture.” Gérard Grisey

Exploring both the origins and aftershocks of spectral music, this two-night extravaganza opens with the U.S. premiere, in its entirety, of French legend Gérard Grisey’s magnum opus, Les Espaces Acoustiques. The six-part cycle written between 1974 and 1985 became a milestone in spectralism, a movement in music that sought to bring the full spectrum of sound, from consonance to noise, into the domain of the concert hall. Pioneered by the collective L’Itinéraire, Grisey and composer Tristan Mureil, spectralism reimagined the harmonic vocabulary as a timbral language and used electronic graphing techniques to influence acoustic performances. Les Espaces Acoustiques begins with a solo viola, than expands the ensemble with each new section until the orchestra reaches the grand Wagnerian size of 88 instruments. The second concert follows with works by the next generation of spectral composers, including recent compositions by Thierry Alla, Philippe Hurel, Gérard Pesson (all from France), Rozalie Hirs (Netherlands).

Funded in part by the French-American Fund for Contemporary Music, a program of FACE, with major support from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, SACEM, Cultures France, and the Florence Gould Foundation.