Wednesday 3. 10.
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BALANESCU QUARTET /RO/UK
19:30, Big Hall
temporarily not available
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info
Their live performances are notable for their sheer energy and dynamism
Since its formation in 1987, the Balanescu Quartet has acquired a reputation
as one of the leading contemporary music groups in the world today.
- Its guiding force has been the Romanian virtuoso violinist and composer
Alexander Balanescu, who has lead the quartet across musical frontiers into new
unchartered territory. This search to push the limits of the string quartet, has
revealed an ensemble with a sensibility nearer to a band rather than a classical
group, and reflects Balanescu's passionate belief in the
intercommunication and fluidity between different musical fields. From its roots
as collaborators with composers such as Michael Nyman and Gavin Bryars, through
projects with Lounge Lizard John Lurie, Jack de Johnette, Ornette Coleman, David
Byrne, the Pet Shop Boys, Spiritualized, Kate Bush and Kraftwerk, they have
developed their own unique writing and performing style setting them apart from
any other string quartet.
Their live performances are notable for their sheer
energy and dynamism. They have played in locations as wildly contrasting as
London's South Bank Centre and New York's Knitting Factory
– they even opened to 10,000 Pet Shop Boys fans at Wembley Arena, and
are constantly looking for venues in which to present their music in a new
context.
Balanescu writes the material that the group performs, and the concert
repertoire very often is connected to commissions: for contemporary dance
(scores for Meryl Tankard, Virgilio Sieni, Jochen Urlich, Rosemary Lee among
others), film and television (including the scores for Phil Haas's
„Angels and Insects“, Guido Chiesa's „Il Partigiano
Johnny“, Renny Bartlett's „Eisenstein“, Catalin
Mitulescu’s â€How I Spent the End of the Worldâ€, and several animation
films for Phil Mulloy, among them the prize winning „Sound of Music“
at Zagreb International Film Festival) and theatre (incidental music for Joanne
Akalaitis's production of „Life's a dream“ for
Chicago's Court Theatre, „Supermarket“ directed by Paolo
Magelli in Theatre de la Place, Liege, â€L’Utopie fatigue les escargotsâ€
for the theatre group Cabaret Dromesko).
The quartet's recordings of
original music include the albums „Possessed“,
„Luminitza“ (inspired by the changes in Eastern Europe after 1989)
and „Angels and Insects“ (MUTE Records), „East meets
East“ (Consipio), „Il Partigiano Johnny“ (Virgin Extra Labels)
and many collaborations, among them with the Pet Shop Boys, David Byrne, Rabih
Abou Khalil and Spiritualized. 2005 saw the release of the album
„Maria T“ which engages in the music and life of the famous Romanian
singer Maria Tanase (1913 – 1963). It was followed by a Contemporary
Network Tour presenting this material in a collaboration with the video artist
Klaus Obermaier. Other releases are „The Island“, a collaboration
with the unique Romanian singer songwriter Ada Milea (Blue Kapibara, 2010) and
„This Is The Balanescu Quartet“, a collection of music garnered from
the Quartet's albums (MUTE Records 2011).
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