New music theatre work
Klaus Maria BrandauerAugust 2008 | Michel van der Aa’s newest music theatre piece, Disquiet is based on texts by Fernando Pessoa. This full-length work features the most essential entries from the Portuguese master’s fictitious diary The Book of Disquiet. We follow the protagonist, played by the acclaimed actor Klaus Maria Brandauer, on stage and in video projections, and witness a haunting mosaic of dreams, psychological notations, autobiographical vignettes and unsparing introspection.
Disquiet will be premiered on 2 January 2009 as the official opening of the LINZ09 (Austria) European Capital of Culture year. Following its first performances in Linz by members of the Bruckner Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, the work will be presented at the ZaterdagMatinee at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
Ana Moura (still from video projection)
In addition to his role as composer, Van der Aa is also film and stage director. In seamlessly integrating music, staging and video images he continues the path taken with his acclaimed operas One and After Life. Alter egos created in the video projections supplement and extend the protagonist on stage, and a moving portrait rises of a man coming to terms with his own identity.
'Mask' performances across Europe and Japan
Ensemble Modern Jul 2008 | Following successful performances in Cologne, Venice, Brussels, Sardinia, Valencia, Porto and Amsterdam in 2006, Mask continues to be programmed by prominent European ensembles and concert halls.
Ensemble Modern successfully performed the work in Frankfurt on 2 April. Future performances will take place in Vilnius (26 October, Ensemble Modern) and in Tokyo (28 August, Tokyo Sinfonietta). The Philharmonia Orchestra London’s ‘Music of Today’ series features a performance of Mask and a conversation with the composer on October 9 in the Royal Festival Hall.
In Mask, musical layers are covered and revealed. Overtone ‘masks’ in the soundtrack transform the colour of the notes in the instrumental ensemble, shifting the sound texture. The musical layers within the ensemble and soundtrack overlap one another; sudden interruptions rip a hole in the texture, revealing previously concealed layers. A percussionist obsessively pulls gaffer tape from a table surface, causing the ensemble to react with manic outbursts. As an old-fashioned metronome, operated by the percussionist, gradually becomes muffled, the soundtrack slowly robs the ensemble’s sound of its overtones.
- read more about Mask »
Song cycle 'Spaces of Blank'
Christianne Stotijn
March 2008 |
Michel Van der Aa completed his new song cycle for mezzo-soprano, orchestra and soundtrack, Spaces of Blank, in February. The work will be premiered by the Dutch mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra on 19 March 2009.
The 26-minute work, set to texts by Emily Dickenson, Rozalie Hirs and Anne Carson, was commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Radio France, the NDR Orchestra in Hamburg and the Fund for the Creation of Music. Performances by the French and German co-commissioners will take place in the 2009/2010 season.
- read more about Spaces of Blank »