Download Michail Goleminov - International Music Council

GHEORGHI ARNAOUDOV
Concerto for Violin
Concerto for Violin, Strings, Percussion and Keyboards
Concerto for Violin, Strings, Percussion and Keyboards is a musical work written in
2009-2010 and recorded in January 2011 in collaboration with the British violinist Roy
Theaker and the orchestra of Bulgarian National Radio and its conductor Gheorghi Dimitrov.
The concerto is written for violin with small string orchestra accompaniment coupled with a
selected set of percussion and keyboards arranged in several configurations and assigned
various tasks in each of the three parts of the work.
In the first part – Molto Allegro, the selected set consists of kettle-drums and four tomtoms, which strengthen and emphasize the continuous, almost hysterical mechanical tension
of a whole machine, built up on the basis of a virtuoso violin part. In the second part –
Andante, it is the glockenspiel as a petite colorful tinge that accompanies the violin cantilena
at the end of its first part. At the end is the third part – Moderato. Allegro moderato. Allegro
with its harpsichord play, soloing celesta and percussion-like piano, that is, instruments
assigned almost theatrical roles in a kaleidoscopic part bearing the subtitle "Manual de
zoología fantástica" which was inspired by a few of the phantasmagoric creatures created by
one of my most favorite authors J.L.Borges. I emphasize the role of these instruments albeit
sometimes they just play slight touches building a common surrealist picture laden with all
kinds of images and references to various styles. It is on purpose that I stress the orchestral
structure because of its role in the entire piece and also because of its interaction with the
soloing violin playing with almost no interruption.
As far as the soloing part goes, it is usually one the greatest challenges to a composer,
especially when he is not a violinist. Typically the traps of pianist thinking and the application
of keyboard methods to a soloing violin are the most frequent temptation. It was something I
was trying to avoid since I started working on this piece. In this case, my collaboration with
Roy Theaker during my work on the concerto was more than fruitful.
GHEORGHI ARNAOUDOV
Gheorghi Arnaoudov (born 1957) is a Bulgarian composer of stage, orchestral, chamber,
vocal, and piano music, a representative of 21st century classical music. He graduated from
the National Academy of Music “Prof. Pantcho Vladigerov” attending at the same time the
summer courses in the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy, as well as the International
composer’s workshops. At present, Mr. Arnaoudov is appointed Associate Professor in
Composition and Harmony at the New Bulgarian University in the "Music" and "Theatre"
departments, as well as at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Sofia University St. Kliment
Ohridski and in the National School of Music.
His compositions include a number of symphonic pieces, chamber and solo
instrumental, vocal and piano music, cycles of works based on old Bulgarian texts dating
from the early Middle Ages, as well as on authentic archaic Orphic texts and rituals, studies of
sound and fiction based on Gothic and Renaissance music, musical stage works, music for
theatrical and film productions, performed and premièred at prestigious venues around the
globe over the past years. This could be music of stasis filled with silence and vibrating sound
or sumptuous and colourful surrealistic baroque sound canvas, a kind of intense minimalism
that tells no conventional stories but rather meditates on an idea.
Gheorghi Arnaoudov has won numerous international and national awards, including
the Grand Prix of the European Broadcasting Union (1995), the Golden Harp Prize from
Jeunesses Musicales (1995), the Carl Maria von Weber International Prize of Music (1989),
and the National Music School Centenary Award (2004). Gheorghi Arnaoudov’s works have
been released on a number of CDs, domestically and internationally.
Michail Goleminov
HYPERKLAVIER
(2010)
for piano and live electronics
The core idea of HYPERKLAVIER is to create a situation of bidirectional interaction
between musician and machine, featuring different transformative aspects, and treating the
computer as a device that is not only repeating the performer’s patterns or playing prerecorded structures, but is also assisting the post-compositional process in it’s stage phase.
In HYPERKLAVIER, I have assigned different roles to the computer – it is performer,
co-composer and improvisation partner.
The musical score is traditionally notated, with some little “freedoms” in terms of
floating pitches and a kind of limited aleatorics.
I first developed the software HYPERKLAVIER version 1.2, before composing the
piece – many aspects of the music were influenced by improvising together with the computer
in my studio. Actually, the music was born from that improvisation sessions.
The program itself features, among various functions, spectral analysis and pitch
tracking, and is reacting to harmonics, dynamics, density of the piano texture, and
articulation. The HYPERKLAVIER software offers an additional function – it’s using tiny
grains of the piano part, which undergo transformation and modification, to create sound
banks during the performance (sounds are being organized in three sample collections –
microtonal, well tempered and totally deformed), and is playing these sounds in a virtual
synthesizer.
The sound material undergoes deconstructive operations, the result of which is also
sound, but sometimes of totally alienated substance and transformed almost to
unrecognizability. At the same time, the modified sound continues to be an organic part of the
dynamically developing and creative dialogue. In this sense, the work implements the
supposition that construction and deconstruction are not polar opposites, but rather two
aspects of the modeling of space.
Different performances of HYPERKLAVIER can have much in common, but many
details are unpredictable, as the software is reacting differently, driven by a significant
amount of randomness that is intentionally implemented in the compositional algorithm on
which the main functions of the software are based.
From a performer’s perspective, the growing field for computer-controlled and
computer-modified sound worlds does not limit or negatively affect performer’s creative
space – the opposite, it fulfills the main goal of live electronics, namely to make it possible
that everything sounds like “alive”, bringing the inner dynamics of the interaction. to the
foreground.
MICHAIL GOLEMINOV
Michail Goleminov studied composition with Dimiter Tupkov and Konstantin Iliev and
conducting with Konstantin Iliev at the state music conservatory in Sofia, then in 1985
continued his musical education in Austria and Holland with Roman Heubenstock-Ramati,
Ton de Leeuw, Alexander Baltin (composition), Karl Österreicher (conducting), and Harald
Osberger (piano). He also studied electroacoustic music with Dieter Kaufmann at Institute for
Electroacoustic Music in Vienna.
Between 1992 and 1998 he collaborated in a series of theatrical productions in Austria
and took part in projects involving contemporary arts, mixed media, and intuitive and
computer music.
A participant in various concerts in Europe, North America, and Africa as pianist,
composer, and conductor, he is the recipient of such international composition prizes as the
Hambacher Preis, Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker, and Osterfestspiele Salzburg.
His works span a wide spectrum of styles and genres, from chamber and orchestral
pieces to computer music, video-compositions and music graphs, and have been
commissioned by the Vienna Konzerthaus, Quebec New Music Society (Montreal), the
MELO-x Saxophone Quartet, and other leading organizations and ensembles.
Now a free-lance musician based in Sofia, he is the co-founder with pianist Angela
Tosheva of the company Orange Factory psychoacoustic arts, an experimental center for
musical creation, performance, publication, and education.