Concerts
Luminico
Electronic and electroacoustic music with live wind instruments, percussion, sonic spatialization, video, poetry, photography and lighting.
LUMINICO is a Mexican interdisciplinary project that combines new audio technologies with wind instruments and percussion. They are devoted to producing performances as visual sound tracks, using structured episodes and linked segments to touch on social and philosophical issues. LUMINICO integrates musics from different sources and composers from around the world, creating a unique mix and fusion of contemporary classical, world and experimental music, sonic art, electroacoustics, live audio and visual improvisation. Composers presented include Alejandro Escuer, Rodrigo Sigal, Gabriela Ortiz, Alejandro Viñao, Michael Matthews, and as well music from India, Japan, Latin America, among other influences that oscillate from traditional idioms (almost ritual or spiritually conceived materials) to contemporary discourses.
In Glorious Techno-Colour
A CBC Live Recording
Technicolor Corporation coined the slogan “Glorious Technicolor” to advance the new three strip color camera that ushered in the age of movies filmed in “technicolor” from 1932–1955. With our program entitled “In Glorious Techno-Colour” we want to celebrate advances in technology combining voices and acoustic instruments with electro-accoustic, video and lighting components to enhance both the visual and aural colours of the music we will perform. Featured are new works by Heidi Ugrin – In Glorious Techno-Colour and Gordon Fitzell – Chrominance along with recent compositions and arrangements by Randolph Peters, David Scott, Jerry Semchyshyn and Örjan Sandred. Our program is chosen and designed to capture the creativity, experimentation, innovation and interaction that provide the stimulus for amazing new technologies.
Mad Science
Featuring the Freedman/Houle/Smulovitz Trio
GroundSwell is pleased to present Mad Science, a multimedia concert featuring the Freedman/Houle/Smulovitz Trio and a complement of Winnipeg’s finest improvising musicians, including the eXperimental Improv Ensemble (XIE). The Freedman/Houle/Smulovitz Trio unites three of Canada’s most creative and versatile musicians: clarinetist Lori Freedman, vocalist Viviane Houle and violist/laptop artist Stefan Smulovitz. Drawing inspiration from the realms of new music, opera and jazz, the trio explores the exquisite intersection of compositional structure and improvisation. The concert will also feature Smulovitz’s newest invention, the Mad Scientist Machine, an innovative software/hardware system that allows a local or remote conductor to direct an improvisatory ensemble through a series of visual colour cues. This is 21st-century improvisation at its finest.
Pre-concert event - 7:15 PM
Premiere of a new work by David Betz. Featuring: Andrew Littleford, trumpet; Jeff Presslaf, trombone; Ken Gold, baritone saxophone. Free admission. Co-sponsored with ACI Manitoba.
John Cage — 100 Years
Arguably the most radical and revolutionary composer of the twentieth century, John Cage changed the way we listen to sound. As much philosopher and inventor as composer, he encouraged us to listen to sounds in themselves rather than to what we do with them — to “liberate” notes and sounds from the intentions of composers, performers and listeners. He brought chance and indeterminacy into our dialogue about music/sound. Many talk about his music — this will be a night to experience its strange magic first-hand: a voice that appears through its desire for invisibility. We’ll hear music ranging from the 1940s to the late Number Pieces, including the rhythmic tour-de-force, Three Dances for two prepared pianos, complete with dancers, and the virtuoso voice/theatre piece Aria.
New York’s Da Capo Chamber Players
Music for flute, clarinet, volin, cello, and piano
GroundSwell is immensely proud to present New York’s Da Capo Chamber Players. The New York Times writes of Da Capo, “Superb…gripping”. Since 1970, this Naumburg Award-winning, internationally acclaimed quintet has built a reputation on working closely with composers, representing an enormous spectrum of compositional styles. Da Capo’s five distinguished artists bring years of creative insight, involvement and artistic leadership to performances of today’s repertoire. Da Capo has twice been featured at Moscow Autumn and St Petersburg Sound Waves Festivals. For this GroundSwell concert they will feature works by Shulamit Ran, Marc Mellits, and Joan Tower, as well as a commissioned trio by Diana McIntosh. Also premiered on the program will be a commissioned duo by Manitoba composer Kenneth Nichols, performed by Robin MacMillan on english horn and Diana McIntosh on piano.