Live recording of the premiere in De Link, Tilburg, 11 March 2014


About "Mixed Economy" - notes by Samuel Vriezen

"Six individuals negotiate a mixed economy, which consists of four different ways of organizing the collective into subgroups. These four planes are intertwined, so the performers must constantly shift their relationship to one another and to the whole, and out of the four planes' motivic shreds create their song."

Mixed Economy, written in 2010, is probably the most complex score I have written. The idea was to base everything on the way the sextet can be seen as a rich multiplicity of sub-ensembles: six solos, one sextet, fifteen duos (one for each couple of instruments), two trios (the winds and the 'rhythm section', mostly playing chords, however). However, instead of presenting these formations in sequential order, they all happen at the same time. In the densest sections of the piece, everybody is constantly related to everybody else in shifting ways. This puts a lot of pressure on individual parts as well as on the sense of ensemble playing - while creating a polyphony of very high density.

The ideal of a completely saturated polyphony has been a constant in my composing, but not merely from a fascination with high information density. I'd like to create forms that do not only create complex textures, but also make their complexity somehow transparent. You can't be expected to hear and follow everything, but you should be able to zoom in and zoom out on the processes as they unfold while you listen. To achieve this type of complexity, I have ended up rather simplifying the basic motives of my melodic style, while making heavy use of canon-like relations and repetitions, but always in intricate mosaic patterns and flexible rhythmic relationships.

Within this big, messy flux, sub-ensembles organize themselves: tiny duos that should be completely together, trio or sextet entrances that are coordinated. Like so many attempts at community in a world where all stability is under constant threat of drifting apart. The soft, slow "solos" offer a form of repose.

The piece is in seven sections, each featuring different mixtures of the "planes". The fifth section is the longest, most continuous onslaught of total counterpoint.'

Mixed Economy - Samuel Vriezen

live improvised music by Gregor Forbes and Johannes von Buttlar, recorded at Kulturnhalle Leipzig by Philipp Ruoff in 2024

Forbes & Butlar #5

Double for two guitars tuned in 1/12th of a tone.
Estelle Lallement and Filipe Marques, guitars

Recording live see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca5pGlpHKX0

I Double (2015)

After the Rain (1983) for shakuhachi, violin, seven ocarinas (three players) and percussion (16 min)

Frank Denyer - After The Rain

Composed in 2013.
Performed by the Ives Ensemble:
Josje ter Haar and Emma Breedveld (violins), Ruben Sanderse (viola) and Job ter Haar (cello)

Holt Quartet

Performed at Radio Belgrade in November 2016 by Nenad Marković and Vladimir Blagojević of Ensemble Studio6 as part of the electroacoustic sextet "close-up"

pauk (2014) for trumpet and accordion

Well known as a commissioner and interpreter of new repertoire for the cello, this is Séverine Ballon’s debut disc as a composer. The eight tracks emerged from her long-standing discipline of improvisation, and display an intense interiority and an undeniable physicality.

inconnaissance

Inconnaissance

Séverine Ballon: cloches fendues 1

http://www.q-o2.be/en/event/stefaan-quix-4/

Stefan Quix 2017

This piece was written for the Ligeti Quartet for their project at the Centre for New Music at Sheffield, supported by Arts Council England.


workshop recording

Forbes & Butlar #5

gregorforbes