02-09-2012

05-09-2012

Netherlands, Amsterdam
SugarFactory Lijnbaansgracht 238 (next to Leidseplein)

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Category: Show/Performance

Field: Performing arts

Source http://www.amsterdamfringefestival.nl/fringe/en/programme/fringe-2012/the-symphony-that-s-beginning-to-end-.aspx

Four preludes to history is a bundled sequence of all of the preludes in Michael Karr's newest work, The symphony that's beginning to end: a comprehensive audio-visual recomposition of music history, which consists of 9.000 fragments of recorded music from 1800 BCE up to today. The fragments, in written and audio form, are layered in a dynamic sequence lasting 200 minutes over 4 chapters which will be performed by three musicians sharing 20 instruments on one stage. Four preludes premiered from the 2nd to the 5th of September in SugarFactory (Amsterdam) and The symphony, lasting a full sixteen hours, is expected to premiere on December 21st at the end of the Maya calendar.

From an audio-visual standpoint, collage and symphony are so closely related that the one can serve to illustrate the other. Composed and performed by means of a spatial collage, this symphony gives insight in the progressive simultaneous production of sound that has been evolving since the beginning of time. We know that instruments have been around for more than 10,000 years, but the earliest (surviving) recordings are to be found on 4,000 year-old clay tablets. With time this developed to a standardized means of notation and somehow this has all logically spawned dubstep and several thousand other genres of music. We now have to rely on academic interpretations of early music; before that, there is only speculation based on archaeological findings. As natural selection of art happens through destruction and conservation, it remains the question what will be seen as early music after another 4,000 years and how much will be forgotten; for the time being, explore it while it's around!

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• Maybe