A composition by Luc Ferrari will be performed for the first time in Latvia during Skaņu Mežs’ evening of contemporary music. This will take place in the Latvian Railway Museum and the piece will be performed by the French electroacoustic musician eRikm. The concert has been organized in collaboration with the French Institute in Latvia.
Since its inception Skaņu Mežs’ goal has been to highlight the influence of post-war academic avant-garde on contemporary experimental and popular music. The festival has introduced the best representatives of the school of French electro music and musique concréte to Latvian audiences – Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Henry, Francois Bayle, Elaine Radigue. The recently deceased composer Luke Ferrari, of French-Italian descent, is regarded as one of the most important musicians of this school. His music, whether acoustic, electronic, or a combination of both, has been interpreted as bold comments on John Cage’s theories, which have been so crucial to contemporary music.
The respected French musician eRikm will perform Luc Ferrari’s electronic composition “Archives Sauvées Des Eaux” at Skaņu Mežs. He was chosen by Ferrari and given directions for further manipulation of these musical fragments. As the author has since passed away the piece will be played in Riga by eRikm who once performed this piece with Ferrari himself, in this way presenting the piece as accurately as originally intended.
This piece, in Ferrari and eRikm’s interpretation, has been published by the label Angle Recrods and received the Charles Cros award, “In Memoriam.” It is interesting to note, that Ferrari has played it with another of this year’s festival’s guests – Otomo Yoshihide.
eRikm currently resides in Marseilles and his work is characterized by both a technical interest in sound art and music, as well as a poetic curiosity about the world. Although nowadays he is more commonly known as a composer of electronic music, he began his musical career as a guitarist. In his creative work, eRikm utilises a number of diverse methods attempting to join a wide variety of creative methods and ideas. He himself describes his approach as being in a constant limbo of mind, intuition and sensitivity. eRikm has performed with such notable musicians as Fennesz, Kevin Drumm, Otomo Yoshihide, Christian marclay, Thomas Lehn and many others.
In eRikm’s interpretation “Archives Sauvées Des Eaux” is full of wilful and eccentric sounds but at the same time feels like a collage of manipulated memories which makes the listener feel like they’re in a vast, museum-like sound construction. The piece is full of illusions and faded cultural symbols. It can be seen as a farewell to the those musical features of the 20th century which haven’t survived until today, but have morphed into something completely different.
Tickets for the festival will be available at “Biļešu Servisa” box offices in Riga, or online at www.bilesuserviss.lv, at the end of July. Tickets for the events on October 10 in Splendid Palace, and October 11 at Palladium cost 10 LVL (14 EUR) each. The event on October 12 at the Latvian Railway Museum costs 7 LVL (10 EUR). A compilation ticket for all three festival nights is available for 17 LVL (25 EUR).
