Tectonics Athens 2019 | 1st Day

“Out of the Dark” (new site-specific work)*: Lemur (NO)

The world premiere of a site-specific work created for the former Athens Stock Exchange by the Norwegian ensemble Lemur. “Out of the Dark” is Lemur’s latest piece re-contextualizing major works from the contemporary and experimental music canon. Using their peculiar blend of improvisation and composition as a mirror, the Lemur ensemble transform titles and concepts into new and original works. The spaces of the once-mighty building on Sofokleous Street host an arrangement inspired by Pauline Oliveros’ score from 1998. Tectonics Festival audiences will be surrounded by both the musicians and a tailor-made sound system.

“Outremer” (1969): Bernard Parmegiani (FR)
Nathalie Forget (FR): ondes Martenot

Bernard Parmegiani (1927-2013) was one of the most important composers of electronic acousmatic music of the last 100 years. A member of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), a collaborator of Iannis Xenakis, and a major musical influence on Aphex Twin, Autechre and Keith Fullerton Whitman, Parmegiani wrote everything from film music to the jingle heard before every announcement at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport for 35 years. The ondes Martenot soloist Nathalie Forget has worked with leading symphony orchestras, as well as with Radiohead and Faust. At the former Athens Stock Exchange, audiences will get the chance to hear this rare electronic music instrument created by Marice Martenot in 1928 played live, in a performance of the work “Outremer” (1969) for onde Martenot and magnetic tape.

Tetsuya Umeda (JP)

At times, ordinary materials – such as ropes, cans and plastic bottles – present unexpected aspects of expansion and occurrence in the viewer, caused by the combination of the simple effects of natural phenomena such as gravity and centrifugal force; the artist does not manipulate them in any specific way. Every single ray of breathtaking light, every sudden accidental explosion, every odd sound can be attributed to, and seen simply to be engaging in parts of its everyday behavior. Thus the boundaries of what we are watching and listening to become blurred and our familiar surroundings, potential accidents and audience behavior become merged as part of the performance. This develops into the realization of a unique experience of the performance, where the ordinary and the extraordinary cross and coincide only in that moment and in that space.