'Mask' performances across Europe and Japan
Ensemble Modern May 2008 | Following successful performances in Cologne, Venice, Brussels, Sardinia, Valencia 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), Porto (26 June, by the Portuguese ensemble Remix) 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.
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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, Anne Carson and Sylvia Plath, 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.
Spring/Summer 2007
Lincoln Center Theatre Directors Lab
September 2007 |
In April/May 2007 Van der Aa was a featured composer at the Tura New Music Festival in Perth, Australia. Among his works performed were the Here trilogy, Auburn, Just Before, Quadrivial and the film Passage. He also gave the keynote address on After Life.
On 1 June Deutsche Oper Berlin organised a lecture about Van der Aa's opera After Life, Passage and Wake were also performed.
Van der Aa took part in the Lincoln Center Theater Director's Lab, an intensive course in stage direction, in June 2007. Workshop leaders included Richard Eyre, Ron van Lieu and Michael Miller. Participants explored themes such as 'playwrights and actors' and 'the director as collaborative leader'.