Partitions And Resonances #4 - Mark Menzies And Johnny Chang

Partitions & Resonances present a listening series of compositions by Wandelweiser and related composers/artists/sound artists at Audio Foundation.
Curated by composer-performer Johnny Chang, the series aims to re-focus the action of listening in the context of the performance space and will take place on the last Saturday of each month.

29.05

Mark Menzies: riroriro braided by river (2021, world premiere)
Jürg Frey: More or Less Normal (2005-2007)

Mark Menzies, violin
Johnny Chang, violin

JÜRG FREY
Jürg Frey was born in Aarau in 1953. After studying at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genèvein Thomas Friedli’s solo class, he began a career as a clarinettist. Later his composing activity became increasingly important. He was subsequently invited by various institutions to give workshops, lectures and retrospective events about his work. He has been a guest at the Berlin University of Arts, at Dortmund University, at University of California San Diego, and several times at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. and at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA.

He developed his own language as a composer and sound artist with the creation of wide, quiet sound spaces. His work is marked by an elementary non-extravagence of sound, a sensibilty for the qualities of the material, and precision of compositional approach.
His music is published by Edition Wandelweiser. Jürg Frey is a member of the Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble that gives concerts in Europe, North America and Japan.

Important stages in his public activity and his compositional development were his concerts and collaborations with the pianist John McAlpine from Cologne, with Radu’s w.i.r. (Vienna), the Bozzini Quartet(Montréal), the QO-2 Ensemble(Brussels), the performance group Die Maulwerker, the incidental music ensemble, the Chicago based a.pe.ri.od.icand the American pianist R. Andrew Lee, and the UK pianist Philip Thomas.

https://www.juergfrey.com


MARK MENZIES
Described in the Los Angeles Times as an ‘extraordinary musician’ and a ‘riveting violinist’, Mark Menzies’ career as a viola and violin virtuoso, chamber musician and pianist, conductor and advocate of contemporary music, and composer, has seen performances in Europe, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and across the United States.

Menzies’ compositions are increasingly played across the globe, with recent premieres in The Netherlands, Italy, Los Angeles, San Diego and Christchurch, where the CSO performed Song of the birds for solo violin, and strings. Featured guest performer/composer at the 2018 SICPP (Summer Institute of Contemporary Performance Practice at the New England Conservatory), performances included Menzies’ glad alemandes (with Stephen Drury, piano), flutter (with Rachel Beetz, piccolo), and six little quartets (with students of the masterclass programme).

Not a ‘career-composer’, Mark Menzies has never-the-less been commissioned and requested by an array of soloists and ensembles: Fisher/McIntosh viola/harpsichord duo; Gayle Blankenburg, pianist; San Diego New Music and the soundON festival; cLoud Collective; 175 East; Wild Up, a Los Angles-based new music ensemble; ensemble proton, bern (Switzerland); Cantori Domino, a choir in Santa Monica; the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra; the Formalist Quartet.

https://4inthetimeof7.com/about-mark-menzies


JOHNNY CHANG
Composer-performer Johnny Chang engages in extended explorations surrounding the relationships of sound/listening and the in-between areas of improvisation, composition and performance.

Johnny has been a part of the Wandelweiser composers collective since 2012 and in 2018, initiated a new framework for the presentation of creative research and performances, Partitions & Resonances, aimed at encouraging new and ongoing collaborations between the varied disciplines of composition, musicology, historical research and performance. He currently collaborates with: Antoine Beuger, Samuel Dunscombe, Catherine Lamb, Klaus Lang, Mike Majkowski, Phill Niblock, Derek Shirley, Germaine Sijstermans, Taku Sugimoto, Eric Wong.

As composer and performer, his articulated performances have been featured in: Staatsoper/ OperaLab//DAAD Mikromusik/MaerzMusik (Berlin), Donaueschingen Musiktage, DNK Days/Sonic Acts Festival/Muziekgebouw (Amsterdam), Gaudeamus (Utrecht), Insub.Festival/cave12 (Geneva), Cafe OTO (London), Moment Musicaux (Aarau), Dampfzentrale (Bern), Q-O2 workspace (Brussels), Wandelweiser Klangraum (Düsseldorf), Klang im Turm (Munich), Minimal Jukebox (Los Angeles Philharmonic), Pardon To Tu (Warsaw), Umlaut Festival (Berlin & Paris), Audio Foundation (NZ) to various music series/venues in Berlin such as Staatsoper unter den Linden, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, KINDL Centre for contemporary art, ausland, Labor Sonor, Sophiensaele, KM28.

https://www.wandelweiser.de/johnny-chang.html