Music magpieON A dimly lit stage, black-clad figures reminiscent of Japanese bunraku puppeteers carry tall screens on long sticks, silently moving among the members of an orchestra. The screens show the orchestra playing short pieces of music, interspersed with archive footage and video clips of interviews. Sometimes the people in black home in on individual musicians and record them on their smartphones, the images immediately showing up on the screens above.
This strange, immersive multimedia experience, an hour and a half long, is a celebration of an iconoclastic modern composer and conductor, Pierre Boulez, who is 90 this year. Entitled “A Pierre Dream”, with a set designed by the architect Frank Gehry, an old friend of Mr Boulez’s, it was conceived by Gerard McBurney for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and first performed last November. On June 17th it is coming to Britain, complete with the Gehry sets, to be played by the Royal Academy of Music Manson Ensemble. It will be part of a three-day homage to Mr Boulez at the Aldeburgh festival in Suffolk, the latest of many events, concerts and...
from The Economist: Books and arts http://ift.tt/1C0Udv1
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