The concert at musikprotokoll 2024 this year is entirely dedicated to a robotic piano player. This apparatus, which is installed on a piano, makes it possible to realise the previously unplayable. 88 blazingly fast mechanical fingers play alongside Ensemble Zeitfluss for the first time. Five new pieces were composed for this occasion and will be premiered on 4 October 2024 in the Helmut List Halle.
For Orestis Toufektsis, composing always involves making choices. The result of this artistic freedom – a thoroughly political act for him – can be sensually perceived in his piece Timescales 4.
In her work Projections, Ukrainian composer Alisa Kobzar uses transcription and analysis algorithms as well as “their limits and distortions” to investigate sound interpretations.
In Elisabeth Harnik‘s composition Le non-art de délier les doigts, ensemble musicians and machinists move between the poles of interpretation and spontaneity. The title of the composition is a tongue-in-cheek reference – anyone who has ever played the piano will understand it!
In addition, there is a new composition by Dimitri Papageorgiou, Fourteen Echoes for an Absence. The composition explores the expressive potential of the automatic piano, focussing on its ability to create soft, dense textures, sudden dynamic changes and complex silences.
Winfried Ritsch contributes a fifth piece with When physics starts to resist II. Here, physical models that reflect the laws of nature on which this algorithmic composition is based are scrutinised. When the laws of physics no longer apply, the system is disrupted and something new could emerge.
4. Oktober 2024 • 7 pm
Helmut List Halle, Waagner-Biro-Straße 98a, 8020 Graz
Artists:
Edo Micic, conductor
Flora Feldner, automatic piano
Ensemble Zeitfluss
Program:
Elisabeth Harnik – Le non-art de délier les doigts
Alisa Kobzar – Projections
Dimitri Papageorgiou – Fourteen Echoes for an Absence
Orestis Toufektsis – Timescales 4
Winfried Ritsch – When physics starts to resist II
The compositions by Elisabeth Harnik, Alisa Kobzar, Dimitri Papageorgiou and Orestis Toufektsis were commissioned by Radio Österreich 1 in co-operation with ORF musikprotokoll. In co-operation with the IEM – Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics, KUG – University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and ÖGZM – Austrian Society for Contemporary Music.
Tickets:
Tagespass 4.10.2024
https://musikprotokoll.orf.at/2024/projekt/ensemble-zeitfluss-automatenklavierspieler