stedelijk @ concertgebouw - layers
fri 13 april 16:00

Location: Spiegelzaal, Concertgebouw Amsterdam
Language: Dutch
More information and reservations: www.aaaserie.nl 

The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is one of the partners in the interdisciplinary AAA- Series, in which the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra collaborates with contemporary art and music institutions in Amsterdam. On Friday afternoon, April 13, the Stedelijk and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra present the program Confrontations: Music, Visual Arts, Debate. The theme of April's program in the AAA 2011/2012 is “Layers.”

For the complete program of the week, please visit www.aaaserie.nl.  

In music, the idea of “layers” can be related to polyphony, layers of several voices that have formed the basis for the development of western music since the Middle Ages. Virtually everything you can hear in the Concertgebouw is related to these distant foundations in one way or another. With the development of composed polyphony, however, a new profession appeared: the writing composer, an architect of sounds, born in the age of cathedral builders. While these gothic buildings attract large-scale public interest, their related music is either unfamiliar or inaccessible to most people.

Polyphony was not new in the fourteenth century. What was new was the fact that it was written down. The development of musical notation enabled the composer to think about design and achieve musical constructions which were impossible in the oral and improvisational tradition.  This led to a layered complexity that was equalled only in twentieth-century avant-garde music. 

The Stedelijk Museum, a permanent partner in AAA, related the theme to a smartphone browser called Layar, which was developed in Amsterdam and makes it possible to add a new layer to reality on a mobile phone. Lest one dismiss this as child’s play, keep in mind that the application’s young developer was one of the guests invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The layers of our multimedia society will be explained in the Confrontations program on Friday afternoon by Nanna Verhoeff, professor of media and culture. In addition, artist Gert Jan Kocken has been invited to make a contribution to the program. For him, the image is never just the image itself. His fascinating, mainly photographic works are characterized by layers of historical meaning, a knowledge of which determines what you see.  

Layers in sound can be heard in three different musical works. The Australian composer Kate Moore presents her work Sensitive Spot, an interaction between solo piano and electro-acoustical tracks. Vermont Counterpoint, by Steve Reich, is a construction of minimalist layers. Vincent Cortvrint, the flautist of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, will play his own solo against the background of material recorded earlier. Conlon Nancarrow’s contribution is represented on the pianola with his unplayable piano music. The afternoon will conclude with a discussion between Kate Moore, Gert Jan Kocken Paul van Nevel, and Nanna Verhoeff.