Christian Marclay

11.03.2002 / 19:00 h
Neue Nationalgalerie / Upper Hall

Graffiti Composition (WP)
Ensemble zeitkratzer, conductor: Butch Morris
Shelley Hirsch – voice, Anthony Coleman – piano

Marclay has also long been a familiar and important figure in Berlin. In 1993, while living in the city as a guest of the DAAD, he staged the enormous simultaneous concert “Berlin Mix” for the 10th anniversary of Freunde Guter Musik. Instead of sampling records, he arranged the diverse repertoire of over 180 musicians of all styles and genres into a polyphonic and multicultural musical tableau. A few years later, in 1996, all “Berliners” could themselves participate in a collective city-wide composition. As part of “sonambiente – festival for hearing and seeing”, Christian Marclay papered the city with 5,000 blank sheets of staff paper, an open invitation to the public to write down notes or any kind of graffiti on them for his work “Graffiti Composition”. The “compositions” made in this way were then photographically documented. Marclay later selected a group of these photos for a fine press edition, and it is on the basis of this edition that a portion of the extensive, collectively-created score is now being musically realized for the first time. The musicians invited by Christian Marclay are all highly experienced in dealing with open notations and improvisational forms. Butch Morris, leader of the well-known “Conduction” projects, a kind of conducted collective improvisational music, is one of the key figures of the international improvisation scene. In this project, he works with the resident Berlin ensemble zeitkratzer. Both Shelley Hirsch and Anthony Coleman are internationally known, Hirsch as a phenomenally versatile vocal artist, and keyboard player Coleman as an eccentric commuter between jazz and the electronic avant-garde. A selection of the scores the musicians will interpret will be displayed on the upper level of the Neue Nationalgalerie for the premiere.

Concept: Ingrid Buschmann, Gabriele Knapstein, Matthias Osterwold

In cooperation with Nationalgalerie in the Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum for the Present, Berlin and MaerzMusik 2002 – Festival of Contemporary Music / Berliner Festspiele. With support from Friends of the Nationalgalerie.

Further information:
www.musikwerke-bildender-kuenstler.de

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