GRAND JEU 2

Wolfgang Mitterer (AT)

POSTCITY

Concert for organ and electronics

In Grand Jeu 2 the large Bruckner organ in the monastery St. Florian is extended and superelevated by a second, electro-acoustic instrument. This multiplies the tonal possibilities, the typical organ sound is modified and mixed with unheard sounds. The resulting textures can be condensed with cluster playing and semi-improvised organ playing techniques to form massive auditory events. The piece is “half-composed”. This approach makes it easier to respond to the specific register and playing possibilities of the existing organ. Grand Jeu 2 is a journey from György Ligeti’s Volumina (1962) to the 21st Century.

Biography:

Wolfgang Mitterer (AT) studied organ, composition and electroacoustics in Vienna and Stockholm. He is not only one of Austria’s greatest specialists in electronics, the keyboard and slide controls, but also among its most innovative composers. His work oscillates between composition and open form. Apart from composing and performing music for organ and orchestra, a piano concerto and an opera, he has produced electronic pieces, conceptualized sound installations, and engaged in collective improvisation with diverse groups, developing a language of extremes, complexity and tension. The pleasure he takes in experimenting leads him to combine contrasting elements for the creation of unpredictable musical events. In one major composition, for instance, he juxtaposes musical bands and children’s choirs with specialized instrumentalists and singers, while filling the hall with surround sound created by live electronics. But his work transcends the merely spectacular, because of his musical presence and the high –deeply moving– intensity of his compositions. Listening attentively to low sounds has its place just as much as the “installing” of exploding sound fragments in the listeners’ minds. Far from being pleasurable in any smooth or simple sense, Mitterer’s music remains beautifully uncanny (M. Meller for “Tirol Multimedial”).
http://www.wolfgangmitterer.com