VOXELECTROACUSTICA

(8 voices)

 

Kaija Saariaho: Nuits, Adieux

Karlheinz Stockhausen: Havona

Luigi Nono: La Fabbrica Illuminata

Carolyn Shaw: Partita

 

Voxnova recorded a cd of “Nuits, Adieux” supervised and mixed by the composer.  This piece uses live electronics to create eerie reverberation.  

Karlheinz Stockhausen composer “Havona” for Nicholas Isherwood.  It was one of the last pieces he completed and one of the most beautiful of his final cycle: KLANG.  The electroacoustic part of the piece is the lowest, slowest layer of his work “Cosmic Pulses,” a 24 channel piece with 24 types of spatialization.  Stockhausen said that he was not sure if human beings would ever be able to hear it all.  The structure of “Havona,” on the other hand, with its double 12 tone row taken from his piece “Momente”, is clearly audible. 

Luigi Nono’s “La Fabbrica Illuminata” is a 20th century classic.  Nono wrote it in response to the deplorable conditions of factory workers. Many of the sounds were recorded at the Italsider factory. A “musique concrete” collage, it is played over 4 channels.

Pulitzer Prize winning composer Caroline Shaw’s octet “Parita” was dubbed one of the 20 greatest works of art music composed since the year 2000.  It makes references to pop music, diphonic music and inuit katajjaq in a mosaic of electroacoustic vocal textures making extensive use of live electronics.