XVI International Music Festival
MOSCOW FORUM
A Space for New Music and Aesthetic Debate
22–27 October 2019
Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Karo Film Oktyabr Cinema
Moscow Composers’ House
One of Russia’s best-known festivals of contemporary music, the Moscow Forum, is being relaunched as a platform for music and debate. Amid a glut of festivals in a Moscow that is endlessly celebrating something, the renewed “Forum” positions itself as a working space for contemporary music and serious aesthetic debate. Right in the concert halls, music will alternate with polemics among composers, performers and well-known philosophers and theorists of contemporary art. The themes of the festival’s concert-discussions are united by a common idea: to examine the interconnections between the phenomena of contemporary society and the tendencies of contemporary music.
The festival’s guests will include the Austrian composer Klaus Lang; the French Flashback Ensemble, which develops projects at the intersection of music and multimedia in collaboration with the famous Paris electronic studio IRCAM; and well-known soloists who perform alternative music: Manuel Zurria (flute, Italy), Dario Calderone (double bass, the Netherlands), Stéphane Ginsburgh (piano, Belgium) and Sahib Pashazade (tar, Azerbaijan). The musicologist Stepan Naumóvich (Germany) will present the first Russian-language edition of the writings of Carl Dahlhaus, one of the most influential musicologists of the late 20th century.
The concert programmes will include Russian premieres by the cult Austrian composers Klaus Lang, Bernhard Lang, Georg Friedrich Haas and Olga Neuwirth; premieres of works by Stefan Prins, Mauricio Kagel, Sylvano Bussotti, Alec Hall, Erwin Schulhoff, Faraj Karaev, Alexey Sioumak, Arman Gushchyan and Mehdi Hosseini; and pieces by the Moscow composers Alexey Sysoev, Vladimir Gorlinsky, Kirill Shirokov and others. The festival will close in the Great Hall of the Karo Film Oktyabr cinema with the Russian premiere of Hans Karl Breslauer’s legendary silent film The City Without Jews (1924, Austria) with music by Olga Neuwirth, performed by the Studio for New Music ensemble under Igor Dronov.
Concert Themes
The Forum’s programme of concerts and discussions is grouped around three entirely different themes: Free Radicals, Eroica — Erotica and Local — Global. The first explores the following questions: what do we regard as radical art today? Is this art really so radical if it is based on, and to a large extent varies, ideas that are a century old? Is radical art a form of struggle for social progress and a new, more perfect world order? Or is it a new conventional format produced by the numerous cultural institutions of late capitalism?
Eroica (the performance of a heroic deed) and Erotica (the expression of love) are among the most ancient and traditionally “foundational” cultural concepts. Today, however, their classical, grandiloquently romanticised interpretation is more likely to be found in the genres of popular art, such as mass-audience films or popular songs. At the festival we shall try to analyse how in contemporary art these notions are subjected to deconstruction and radical artistic rethinking. In other words, we shall attempt to explore the very construction and deconstruction of feelings.
Local — Global: How, in the age of globalisation, is the musical art developing in countries that do not belong to Western Europe, in the regions, so to speak, “east of the West”, which throughout the 20th century largely determined the development of new music? Are the cultures of these regions “forever catching up” and “taking their cue from…”, or, precisely because they are less integrated into the processes of total globalisation, do they, in their independent development, have a better chance of preserving a cultural identity that is increasingly being lost by today’s international mainstream? How can one avoid being drawn into the vortex of cultural nationalism and at the same time not dissolve in the all-levelling space of globalist standards?
These questions will be discussed by musicians and philosophers right on the stage of the concert hall in the format of a round table held during a discussion interval between the halves of each concert.
The daytime educational programme of the Moscow Forum is held jointly with the Stravinsky.online portal and includes a six-day intensive seminar on contemporary music for cultural scholars and music critics, as well as masterclasses by renowned foreign performers of contemporary music.
The festival’s artistic director is the composer Vladimir Tarnopolsky.
The festival is supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum in Moscow, the Italian Cultural Institute in Moscow, the National Foundation for the Support of Rights Holders, the Karo cinema chain, Wallonie-Bruxelles International (W.B.I.), the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Stravinsky.online portal, the Centre for Electroacoustic Music of the Moscow Conservatory and the Moscow Composers’ House.
LIST OF EVENTS
22 October, Tuesday
Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory, 19:00
FREE RADICALS
Concert 1
19:00
Georgy DOROKHOV
Manifesto for 3 pieces of polystyrene foam (2009)
Daria ZVEZDINA
no-shelled for flute, violin, piano and electronics (2018)
Peter ABLINGER
Regenstück from the cycle “Instruments &” for ensemble, water and membrane (2007) RP*
____________________
20:00 Discussion 1
Anatoly Osmolovsky, artist, art theorist, founder of the BAZA Institute
Simon Mraz, cultural attaché of the Austrian Embassy in Russia, director of the Austrian Cultural Forum
Klaus Lang, composer, special guest of the festival (Austria)
____________________
21:00
Dmitry BURTSEV
Body, My Traitor for solo accordion (2016)
Pavel POLYAKOV
What the Flowers Tell Me for violin (2019) WP**
Kirill SHIROKOV
Seventeen Fragments of Music for solo viola (2016) /
Numbers, version for 12 performers (2018/2019) WP
Klaus LANG
The Ocean of Yes and No for ensemble (2008) RP
____________________
22:00
Discussion 2
Lightning statements by the composers:
Dmitry Burtsev, Daria Zvezdina, Pavel Polyakov, Alexey Sysoev, Kirill Shirokov
Alexey SYSOEV
Wallpapers 3.2.24 (2019)
Performers:
Alexey Sysoev, grand piano / percussion / stepper motors
Vladimir Gorlinsky, guitar
Daria Zvezdina, viola
Dmitry Burtsev, accordion
Vasilisa Filatova, violin
Pavel Polyakov, violin
Studio for New Music
Conductor: Igor Dronov
* Russian premiere
** World premiere
Supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum in Moscow
.png)
**********************************************************************
23 October, Wednesday
Great Hall of the Composers’ House, 19:00
FREE RADICALS
Concert 2
19:00
Multimedia project “Double Game” (2019)
Russian premiere
Jesper NORDIN
Calm Like a Bomb
Alexandre VERT & José Miguel FERNÁNDEZ
Double Jeu
Jesper NORDIN
Ashes in the Fall
Performers:
Flashback Ensemble (France)
Diego Tosi, violin
Thomas Pénanguer, video artist
____________________
20:00
Discussion
Manuel Zurria, flautist, founder of the contemporary music ensemble Alter Ego, festival guest (Italy)
Dario Calderone, double bassist, festival guest (the Netherlands)
Diego Tosi, violinist, soloist of the Ensemble intercontemporain, festival guest (France)
Alexandre Vert, composer, director of the Flashback Ensemble, festival guest (France)
Thomas Pénanguer, video artist of the Flashback Ensemble, festival guest (France)
____________________
21:00
Bernhard LANG
DW 22 “Winterlicht” for bass flute and double bass (2010) RP
Monadology XVI “Solfeggio” for flute (2011) RP
DW 25 “…more loops for U…” for amplified double bass (2014) RP
Performers:
Manuel Zurria, flute (Italy)
Dario Calderone, double bass (the Netherlands)
In association with the Centre for Electroacoustic Music and the Moscow Composers’ Union, with the support of the Italian Cultural Institute in Moscow
.jpg)
**********************************************************************
24 October, Thursday
Conservatory Conference Hall, 12:00
Book Presentation
Carl Dahlhaus. Selected Writings on the History and Theory of Music
Translated by Stepan Naumóvich
Centre for Electroacoustic Music, 14:00
Masterclass: Dario Calderone, double bass (the Netherlands)
Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory, 19:00
EROICA — EROTICA
The Construction and Deconstruction of Feelings
Concert 1
Age restriction 18+
19:00
Pierre SCHAEFFER, Pierre HENRY
Symphonie pour un homme seul (1949–1950, excerpts)
4. Erotica
9. Eroica
Mauricio KAGEL
Zehn Märsche, um den Sieg zu verfehlen for winds and percussion (1978–1979) RP
Nos. 1, 2, 3, 9, 10
Sylvano BUSSOTTI
Lachrimae, version for solo double bass by D. Calderone (1978) RP
Alexey SYUMAK
Hero’s Last Dance for solo flute (2019) WP
Erwin SCHULHOFF
Sonata Erotica for solo female voice (1919) RP
_____________________
20:00
Discussion
Igor Kondakov, professor at the Department of the History and Theory of Culture, Russian State University for the Humanities, author of the book “Russian Mass Culture: From Baroque to Postmodernism”
Anatoly Osmolovsky, artist, art theorist, founder of the BAZA Institute
Klaus Lang, composer, special guest of the festival (Austria)
_____________________
21:00
Olga BOCHIKHINA
…, and the ship sails on… for violin and piano
for double bass, electronics, and soprano and tenor ad libitum (2017)
Nikolai POPOV
Edit(a)Fill for flute, electronics and video (2015)
Video artists: Alexander Plakhin and Alexandra Golikova
Klaus LANG
Darkness and Freedom for flute, cello and accordion (2016/2017) RP
Mauricio KAGEL
Zehn Märsche, um den Sieg zu verfehlen for winds and percussion (1978–1979) RP
Nos. 8, 7, 6, 5, 4
Performers:
Manuel Zurria, flute (Italy)
Dario Calderone, double bass (the Netherlands)
Nadezhda Meyer, soprano
Alexey Smirnov, stage director
Nikolai Popov, electronics
Studio for New Music
Conductor: Sergey Akimov
Supported by the Italian Cultural Institute and the Austrian Cultural Forum in Moscow
**********************************************************************
25 October, Friday
Centre for Electroacoustic Music, 14:00
Masterclass: Manuel Zurria, flute (Italy)
Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory, 19:00
EROICA — EROTICA
The Construction and Deconstruction of Feelings
Concert 2
19:00
Stefan PRINS
Piano Hero #1 for MIDI keyboard, live electronics and video (2011–2012) RP
Alec HALL
A Dog is a Machine for Loving for speaking pianist and electronics (2016–2018) RP
Stefan PRINS
Piano Hero #4 for MIDI keyboard, live electronics and video (2016–2017) RP
Performers:
Stéphane Ginsburgh, piano (Belgium)
Alec Hall, electronics (Canada)
____________________
20:00
Discussion
Irina Sirotkina, leading researcher at the Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, historian of psychology and anthropologist
Roman Nasonov, musicologist, associate professor at the Department of the History of Foreign Music, Moscow Conservatory
Stéphane Ginsburgh, pianist, festival guest (Belgium)
Alec Hall, composer, festival guest (Canada)
____________________
21:00 Vladimir GORLINSKY
10 Orphic Songs for voice, artificial reverberation and delay (2018) WP
Performers:
Vladimir Gorlinsky, voice
Alexey Nadzharov, electronics
.png){kind=logo}
**********************************************************************
26 October, Saturday
Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory, 19:00
LOCAL — GLOBAL
19:00 Arman GUSHCHYAN
Stillhörig for 13 instrumentalists (2013) RP
Mehdi HOSSEINI
Inertia for clarinet, piano, violin and cello (2014)
Henry COWELL
Homage to Iran for violin, piano and percussion (1959)
____________________
20:00
Discussion
Mikhail Velizhev, professor at the Faculty of Humanities, HSE University, author of the book “Civilisation, or the War of the Worlds”
Faraj Karaev, composer, professor at the Moscow Conservatory
Mehdi Hosseini, composer, director of the ReMusik contemporary music centre (St Petersburg)
Arman Gushchyan, composer, founder of the “Music Trajectory” platform
____________________
21:00
Klaus LANG
Tehran Dust for harmonium and cello (2013) RP
Faraj KARAEV
Sermon, Mugham and Prayer for tar, instrumental ensemble and tape (1997) RP
Performers:
Honoured Artist of Azerbaijan
Sahib Pashazade, tar
Studio for New Music
Conductor: Sergey Akimov
Supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum in Moscow and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan
.png)
**********************************************************************
27 October, Sunday
Karo Film Oktyabr Cinema, 19:30
THE CITY WITHOUT JEWS
Silent film (1924)
Director: Hans Karl Breslauer
Music: Olga Neuwirth (2017)
Russian premiere
Performers:
Studio for New Music
Conductor: Igor Dronov
In association with KaroArt, with the support of the Austrian Cultural Forum in Moscow and the National Foundation for the Support of Rights Holders
.png)
.png){kind=logo}