Roundtable Discussion | Music for every occasion

Alvin Curran and Daan Vandewalle in conversation with the curators of the Sonic Chromas series, Lorenda Ramos, Stavros Gasparatos, and Michalis Paraskakis

Εxhibition space, B & M Theocharakis Foundation

The discussion focuses on the multifaceted work of Alvin Curran: his compositional thinking in which every sound source can become musical material, his trajectory over time, and the group Musica Elettronica Viva, active from 1966 to 2017. Pianist Daan Vandewalle will speak about the interpretive challenges of the monumental piano cycle Inner Cities.

Friday, March 20 | 18:00

Free admission (seat reservation required)

About the Artists

Alvin Curran began his musical career in 1965 in Rome as a co-founder of the radical ensemble Musica Elettronica Viva, and has performed in more than 200 concerts across Europe and the United States. His music embraces opposites, composed/improvised, tonal/atonal, maximalist/minimalist, seeking a dialectical coexistence. His works incorporate recorded and sampled natural sounds alongside piano, synthesizers, computers, violin, percussion, ship sirens, accordion, and choir. During the 1970s he created a poetic series of solo works for synthesizer, voice, recorded sounds, and everyday objects. In his pursuit of new musical spaces, and being considered one of the leading figures in music created outside traditional concert halls, Curran developed a series of performances for lakes, harbors, parks, buildings, quarries, and caves, which became his natural laboratories.

He studied with Elliott Carter, counted Giacinto Scelsi among his friends and mentors, and collaborated with Cornelius Cardew, Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, Steve Reich, Joan La Barbara, Michael Nyman, La Monte Young, Trisha Brown, Robert Ashley, David Behrman, Gordon Mumma, Alvin Lucier, Larry Austin, Nuova Consonanza, MEV2, Philip Glass, Charlemagne Palestine, Terry Riley, George Lewis, John Cage, David Tudor, Morton Feldman, among others.

Daan Vandewalle, one of the leading interpreters of 20th and 21st century music, studied at the Ghent Conservatory in Belgium with Claude Coppens, and at Mills College in California with Alvin Curran. He is a member of the Belgian-American Educational Foundation and teaches piano at the Ghent Conservatory. Since his debut in 1992 (Ars Musica), his recitals and projects have become increasingly diverse and demanding. He has improvised with David Moss, Fred Frith, Han Bennink, Chris Cutler, and Tom Cora at festivals throughout Europe. He has performed, among others, the complete piano works of Charles Ives, works by Messiaen, the piano concertos of Ligeti and Lutosławski, the rarely performed Cogluotobusisletmesi by Clarence Barlow, John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes, and Sorabji’s Opus Clavicembalisticum.

His programs are highly original both technically and curatorially, often combining classical repertoire with premieres of works written specifically for him. He has collaborated with numerous ensembles including The Simpletones, Champ d’Action, Tense Serenity, Vapori del Cuori, Sonic Youth, and Ostravska Banda, and has formed a piano duo with Geoffrey Douglas Madge. In 2000, he received the Jeanne and Willem Pelemans Prize from the Union of Belgian Composers. In 2005, he released a four-CD recording of the complete cycle Inner Cities by Alvin Curran (long distance / Harmonia Mundi), which received enthusiastic critical acclaim. He is currently recording the complete piano works of Frederic Rzewski (Passacaille).