This weekend at REDCAT, by Kyle Rosen—A chaconne for piano in which a photograph of the interpreter’s face is graphically reconstructed by stacking musical phrases and cycles on top of one another; a multidimensionally scaled Bach chorale based on harmonically rationalized pitches; a digital audio and video recording that tracks a global journey that begins and ends in Cologne, Germany: all of these musical realizations form part of an extensive interdisciplinary program presenting the work of CLARENCE BARLOW, a pioneer of electroacoustic music, and UCSB Corwin Chair of Composition.
The coupling of old musical forms and new media has for many composers yielded strained, sometimes flat-out awkward, results. For Clarence Barlow, however, thinking about the suggestive ways in which these two elements come together has developed into a compositional practice that produces stimulating and often explosive work. At seventy years old, Barlow continues to push the limits of musical experimentation, and Saturday night’s program, which features a number of pieces composed within the past ten years, reveals that the composer has no intention of slowing down.
CLARENCE BARLOW, Saturday, April 8.
Film screening at 7:00 pm, concert at 8:30 pm.
REDCAT, Disney Hall, downtown Los Angeles.
redcat.org/event/clarence-barlow
Zero Crossing, a film by Clarence Barlow
Image credit: Clarence Barlow and REDCAT