SONGS AND LABYRINTHS | 28 April
John Zorn - Cat O'Nine Tails (1988)
John Luther Adams - The Wind in High Places (2011)
Margriet Hoenderdos - September '00 (2000)
Harry Partch, arr. Ben Johnston - Barstow (1941/94)
Jellantsje de Vries, violin
Raphaella Engelsberg, violin
Lidwine Dam, viola
René van Munster, cello
Gregory Charette, voice
Season 2017 | 18
Oerknal presents a program of string quartets juxtaposing synthetic and organic worlds, crude and refined sounds, bombast and introspection; a collection of songs and labyrinths.
Described by the composer as an unholy mashup of Looney Tunes and S&M, John Zorn's Cat O'Nine Tails presents a dizzying array of styles and genres, cutting between Appalachian fiddling, Xenakis quotations, jazz solos and cartoon soundtracks. At the other end of the aesthetic spectrum, John Luther Adams' The Wind in High Places uses only natural harmonics and open strings – played extremely quietly – to create a still, pastoral ambience.
Samuel Vriezen has called the work of Margriet Hoenderdos "...ambiguous labyrinths in which a striking music is hiding in plain sight." Oerknal is proud to present Hoenderdos' September '00, a ten-minute collage of delicate gestures and vertical sound blocks at once meditative and fleeting. Ben Johnston’s arrangement of Harry Partch’s Barstow is an idiosyncratic masterpiece; scored for string quartet and reciter/singer in extended just intonation, it sets various texts that Partch collected while traveling as a hobo during the Great Depression.
Saturday, 28 April - 20.15
The Hague - Galerie Nouvelles Images
Westeinde 22
2512 HD Den Haag
Margriet Hoenderdos