{"id":43601,"date":"2017-03-11T16:05:47","date_gmt":"2017-03-11T21:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=43601"},"modified":"2017-03-11T16:05:47","modified_gmt":"2017-03-11T21:05:47","slug":"canada-mosaic-nicole-lizee-machines-behaving-badly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2017\/03\/11\/canada-mosaic-nicole-lizee-machines-behaving-badly\/","title":{"rendered":"CANADA MOSAIC | Nicole Liz\u00e9e: Machines Behaving Badly"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Montreal
Montreal composer, DJ, and video artist Nicole Liz\u00e9e (Photo: Diane Park)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

M<\/span>ontreal-based composer Nicole Liz\u00e9e<\/a> fuses the old with the new, the antiquated with the innovative, the defective with the pristine. Her work pushes technological objects to the point of rupture, and displaces these sounds into different and daring contexts. Liz\u00e9e\u2019s work is characterized by the striking sonic beauty that is revealed in such processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy aesthetic is built around the idea of malfunction. Embracing malfunction, embracing vintage machines and vintage techniques, old-school film techniques [\u2026] but especially malfunctions. Machines and media behaving badly. And harnessing that glitch [\u2026] not only using that machine that is glitching, but simulating that using acoustic or live musicians.\u201d<\/p>\n

This novel musical aesthetic is provocative and evidently attractive; Liz\u00e9e\u2019s work has been performed by the likes of the BBC Proms, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, and in dozens of notable venues throughout North America and Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great time to be in the classical world [\u2026] we\u2019re moving forward; it\u2019s an active time. All I can say is that I\u2019m really enjoying presenting things that are my aesthetic, that I\u2019ve been doing for a long time. Orchestras and ensembles are really embracing it, really wanting to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liz\u00e9e is a featured composer in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra\u2019s 2017 New Creations Festival. Two of her new compositions will be featured in the third and final concert of the festival on March 11<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Her first piece on Saturday\u2019s program, Zeiss After Dark, is Liz\u00e9e\u2019s sonic homage to cinematography. Drawing on her longstanding fascination with film in the 1960s and 1970s, Liz\u00e9e was interested in musically capturing the difficulty inherent in film that relies solely on candles to light a particular scene, such as in Stanley Kubrick\u2019s 1975 Barry Lyndon. To combat the challenges inherent in this kind of practice, the film employed a special kind of lens \u2014 a Zeiss lens\u2014to facilitate this low light situation and maintain the intimate effect. Liz\u00e9e sought to evoke this effect musically:<\/p>\n

\u201cReading about this and reading about what the cinematographer had to go though was really fascinating [\u2026] So essentially I wanted lens music, I wanted cinematography music. That\u2019s what I was creating: something to acoustically simulate\u00a0[\u2026] the flicker, the low-light, the heat, the shadows; what the Zeiss lens would sound like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Barry
Barry Lyndon Candlelight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Black MIDI, Liz\u00e9e\u2019s other piece on the program, is a TSO commission that will have its world premiere on Saturday evening. The piece is inspired by an underground micro-genre known as Black MIDI<\/a>. This music utilizes music notation software or MIDI sequencers to sound an extraordinary amount of notes simultaneously.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sound is black. It\u2019s blackened from the inputting of so many notes. And the sound, of course, is just massive. It\u2019s this ridiculous, crazy sound that\u2019s easy to become addicted to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Black
Black MIDI score sample<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Liz\u00e9e\u2019s piece transports this digital music practice to the Roy Thomson stage; Black MIDI is specifically written as a concerto to feature the world-renowned Kronos String Quartet alongside the TSO. Rooted in her fascination with sonic malfunction, Liz\u00e9e\u2019s Black MIDI aims to \u201cbreak\u201d the acoustic orchestral instruments using notation software. \u201cThe orchestra and the string quartet will ask the question: what is [Black MIDI]? They will tap into the mystery of what it could be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liz\u00e9e\u2019s music marks a clear departure from \u201ctraditional\u201d art music practice. When composers concoct unconventional musical experiments, results may vary. This can push music into a more approachable, wide-reaching musical middle ground, or, in some cases, the music can become abstracted to the point of general disinterest. When I asked Liz\u00e9e how people generally respond to her musical experiments, she explained that \u201cthe reactions are very vast, but they always have something to say, which is exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been resistance,\u201d Liz\u00e9e recalled. She explained that during her graduate studies at McGill University her proposed thesis piece \u2014 a turntable concerto \u2014 was an issue of contention among the composition faculty. When I asked Liz\u00e9e if she still feels any sense of resistance towards her work as a more established composer, she said this is a non-issue for her:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to do what I want to do [\u2026] I\u2019ve written for a lot of amazing ensembles that know what I do and want me to write for them [\u2026] I\u2019m going to create the piece that I want to create [\u2026] and then the invitations and the commissions \u2014 knowing what I\u2019ve done \u2014 will stem from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Liz\u00e9e was careful to note that she does not think about the audience when she\u2019s composing, she also recognized that her audiences are quite varied, and that her music \u201chas different connotations for different people.\u201d<\/p>\n