Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf

Modern Life And Ancient Catastrophy

On November 25th, 2021, students from the Klang und Realität master’s program were joined by American composer Kyle Gann in the recording studio of the Hochschule Düsseldorf, where they played a concert under the direction of Marcus Schmickler and Phillip Schulze as part of the Robert Ashley Festival.

“My pieces cultivate an expansion of perception through a steady increase in complexity of pitch and rhythm,” Gann has written about his music. “Particularly in the compositions for the Disklavier, different tempi run parallel, and nearly half of my music uses microtonal scales.”

Afterwards, the students presented compositions developed specifically for the concert evening and inspired by Robert Ashley. The recording of “Modern Life and Ancient Catastrophy,” is a real-time, multi-channel, algorithmic composition in which human voices bring the Disklavier to life. Other sound sources integrated into the recording included analogue synthesizers and a four-channel video feed.

Contributors: Josef Baader, Antonia Alessia Virginia Beeskow, Sebastian Fecke Diaz, Laura Greco, Mark Philipp Matthes, Natalia Molina Bohorquez, Josephine Stamer, Sebastian Wullf, and Raphael Maria Zöschinger.

With generous support from the Hochschule Düsseldorf, Prof. Dr. Dieter Leckschat, and Christian Epe, as well as from the Filmwerkstatt Düsseldorf, Jan Wagner, and Julian Scheibel.