Eliane Radigue has composed electronic music since the sixties. She is the only French woman composer of her generation who is considered to be a pioneer of electroacoustic and minimal music.
A student of piano and harp, Radigue was already composing music before she heard a broadcast by musique concrète founder Pierre Schaeffer. She met him shortly thereafter, and took an immediate liking to him. Radigue, then in her 20’s, clearly remembers the meeting, and how she found Schaeffer, in his 40’s, to be quite old at the time:
After becoming his student, and also working with fellow pioneer Pierre Henry, she moved to the United States, where, working at the New York University School for the Arts, she composed and presented her first synthesizer-based music –“Adnos I” (1974).
Throughout the 1970s, Radigue worked extensively on synthesizer music, specifically the ARP synthesizer, which became her signature instrument:
She composed her last purely electronic work, l’Ile Resonante, in 2000.
As requests for collaborations continued to pour in from musicians worldwide, she began creating works with and for specific performers and acoustic instruments since 2004. CTM.12 will be presenting one of these latest works; the Naldjorlak three-piece series, which will be performed by a trio of musicians with whom Radigue worked closely to compose the work.
The following day, festivalgoers are invited to attend a conversation with Radigue in the afternoon, as well as a performance of another of her works – "PSI 847" – which will be played from its original tapes by respected electroacoustic musician Lionel Marchetti.
Performance information:
// Monday January 30, 2012
CTM.12 Opening Concert
Eliane Radigue [FR] "Naldjorlak" , performed by Charles Curtis [US], Carol Robinson [US/FR] and Bruno Martinez [FR], 150 min.
Time: 19h30
Venue: HAU 1, Stresemannstraße 29, 10963 Berlin-Kreuzberg