Terry Riley’s In C is one of the first and style-defining works of the so-called Minimal Music. His influence on later US- and European composers, but also on the development of electronic club-music as well as pop music nowadays, is not to be dismissed. The 1964 composed work premiered in San Francisco the same year - the birthdate of Minimal Music.
Initiated by stargaze and invited by the Acht-Brücken Festival Cologne, Matthew Herbert and the young music-collective stargaze will now perform and redefine In C.
Herbert, especially known for his live-sampling and works with “concrete sounds”, will record and sample the live-performed acoustical patterns of In C, electronically rework and mix them with instrumental sounds again: The different layers, interfering with each other, will have an even more intense effect – a homage to a timeless piece and music's developments since 1964.
Programme
Matthew Herbert Quartett
The End of Silence (2012)
German Premiere
Terry Riley
In C (1964)
First Performance of version for electronics and live instruments
Matthew Herbert Quartett
stargaze are
André de Ridder – violin & artistic leader
Johannes Pennetzdorfer – viola
Michael Rauter – cello
Marlies van Gangelen – oboe
Miguel Pérez Iñesta - clarinet, bass clarinet
Morris Kliphuis - horn
Sarah Nicolls – piano
Johannes Fischer – percussion
Matthew Herbert – electronics
In collaboration with c/o pop und stargaze
tickets: here
The Magnetic North are Hannah Peel, Erland Cooper and Simon Tong, three musicians known from bands like The Good, The Bad and The Queen as well as Erland and the Carnival. Their debut album Orkney: Symphony of the Magnetic North is dedicated to the Orcadian Betty Corrigall, who hanged herself, pregnant and heartbroken, in the 1770s. After the girl appeared in Cooper’s dream one night, he decided to record an album inspired by several locations of the Orkney Islands. The album, featuring a little string and brass section as well as the Orcadian Stromabank Pub Choir, invites the listener to a somehow faraway, enchanted-appearing Orkney where fact and fiction easily mixes.
The band will perform their Orkney-Symphony live on stage, accompanied by their own drummer, cellist and violin-player as well as stargaze-musicians and a choir.
Sarah Neufeld will both be opening and accompanying Magnetic North.
tickets: here
On June 10th, the young british band These New Puritans released their third album Field of Reeds on the Infectious label.
In December 2010 stargaze accompanied the only German Hidden live show, including orchestral ensemble, children's choir, two pianos and two vibraphones, at the HAU theatre in Berlin, based on TNPs second album, Hidden. For their new record, the band opted to travel to Berlin in April 2012 and record the initial instrumental tracks for all their new songs with members of the stargaze collective at the P4 studio on the premises of the former Funkhaus Nalepastrasse. stargaze also teamed up singer/composer Jack Barnett with dutch composer Michel van der Aa to co-compose and arrange one of the tracks, The Light In Your Name. Future live shows with the new material are in planning. stargaze will play with TNPs at this year's Haldern-Pop festival on August 9th.
Best New Album on: Pitchfork
A stargaze project, in cooperation with Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, in co-production with the Holland Festival.
The Berlin string ensemble Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop have built themselves a reputation as pioneers on the concert stage. For this performance conducted by André de Ridder, they are joined by special guest guitarist Lee Ranaldo. Co-founder of noise rock band Sonic Youth as well as an early member of Glenn Branca's performing groups, he has pioneered new electric guitar playing techniques. Here he performs a new score of his, developed and arranged jointly with stargaze.
New song material will be woven into a structure of a more abstract piece reflecting on the approach of baroque soloist ensemble typical for Kaleidoskop and also evident in Charles Avison’s (1685-1757) Concerto grosso No. 3 , which is programmed alongside the uncompromising Light a capella by the Berlin composer Sebastian Claren and the thrilling and alarming Fuel by New York composer Julia Wolfe and video artist Bill Morrison.
Programme
Sebastian Claren (1965) - Licht a capella (2011)
Dutch premiere
Julia Wolfe (1958) - Fuel
video Bill Morrison
Charles Avison ( 1709 - 1770 ) - Concerto grosso nr. 3, d-moll (1744)after Domenico Scarlatti(1685-1757)
Lee Ranaldo (1956) - New work - World Premiere
Commissioned by stargaze, Holland Festival and Sydney Festival
Lee Ranaldo, guitars
Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop
André de Ridder, conductor
tickets: here
photos: here
stargaze has been invited to be the resident instrumental ensemble throughout this year's edition of the Haldern-Pop festival in Germany. We will perform with several artists including Villagers, Jherek Bishoff, These New Puritans, Buke & Gase and Ben Shemie (Suuns), and undertake workshops for future collaborations in a studio setting. It is, we hope, a departure towards an ongoing relationship and to establishing a laboratory for collaborative practices within current pop and contemporary classical music within an informal festival setting. bands and solo-artists can meet "classical" instrumentalists freely and any time, and contemporary instrumental music is performed as part of the music programme.
festival tickets: sold out
photos: here.
Terry Riley’s In C is one of the first and style- defining works of the so-called Minimal Music. His influence on later US- and European composers, but also on the development of electronic club-music as well as pop music nowadays, is not to be dismissed. The 1964 composed work premiered in San Francisco the same year - the birthdate of Minimal Music.
Initiated by stargaze and invited by the Barbican Hall London for their fifth edition of Transcender, Matthew Herbert and the young music-collective stargaze will now perform and redefine In C.
Herbert, especially known for his live-sampling and works with “concrete sounds”, will record and sample the live-performed acoustical patterns of In C, electronically rework and mix them with instrumental sounds again: The different layers, interfering with each other, will have an even more intense effect – a homage to a timeless piece and music's developments since 1964.
tickets: here
photos: here
stargaze accompanies Conor O'Brien and Cormac Curran in orchestral arrangements of Villagers songs by Nico Muhly. These were premiered at the Barbican Centre, London, in May 2013, conducted by André de Ridder. After a first collaboration at Haldern Pop Festival 2013, this is the second time these songs are heard in special 'stargaze' ensemble versions.
After a successful collaboration at Crossing Border Festival and for the third time already, stargaze will accompany Villagers (full-band line-up) for their last show of 2013 in their hometown Dublin. There will be arrangements by Nico Muhly as well as Villagers' own Cormac Curran, both heard in special 'stargaze' ensemble versions.
More Infos: here
Tickets: here
Originally from Vancouver Island, BC, Sarah Neufeld began playing the violin at the age of 3.
Her musical pursuits led her to move to Montreal, QC, in 1998, where she resides to this day. She is best known as a member of the indie rock phenomenon Arcade Fire, as well as instrumental post-rock ensemble, Bell Orchestre. With these bands, she has received five Juno awards, two Brit awards, Canada's Polaris Prize, and a Grammy for Best Album (cumulatively). Other projects include collaborations with Montreal bands The Luyas, Snailhouse, and Esmerine. In 2011, Neufeld was commissioned to write a piece for solo violin by director Jason Last for a short film (Scalpel/Stradivarius) for Vogue Italia. A full length album of solo material produced by Nils Frahm is due to be released in 2013.
In addition to this busy schedule of touring and recording, Sarah has dedicated her life to a personal practice of yoga, and became a certified instructor of Moksha Yoga in 2009. She is now co-owner of Moksha Yoga NYC, the first Moksha studio opened in NY.
tickets: here
An event describing what stargaze is and likes to do most, stargaze present will take place from February 14-16th 2014 at and in collaboration with Volksbühne at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in our hometown Berlin. We are more than happy with the line-up which features worldpremieres and new collaborations between Berlin-based Ensembles and artists from Germany, United Kingdom and USA. Every evening consists of three concerts, ranging from the classical string-quartet to minimalist approaches, punk with choir to electronics. Our „signature“-piece In C by Terry Riley ends each evening, re-interpreted by selected artists.
videos: short documentary, Full Concert with Nils Frahm.
Line-Up:
Nils Frahm – 1000 Robota – stargaze – Mouse on Mars – Zafraan Ensemble – Holy Other – Cantus Domus – Tyondai Braxton – Pantha du Prince and The Bell Laboratory – Pekka Kuusisto and Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop - My Brightest Diamond
Friday, 14th:
stargaze performs Bryce Dessner's Aheym
Holy Other & Cantus Domus
Nils Frahm & stargaze perform Riley's In C
Saturday, 15th:
stargaze performs Ben Shemie's Positive Feedback
1000 Robota, stargaze & Cantus Domus
Pantha du Prince & The Bell Laboratory perform Riley's In C
Sunday, 16th:
Pekka Kuusisto, Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop & André de Ridder perform Owen Pallett's Violin Concerto
My Brightest Diamond & Zafraan Ensemble
Tyondai Braxton & Mouse on Mars perform Riley's In C
Do follow us on twitter directly or tweet on #stargazepresents.
This project is kindly supported by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
read all and program details on our event page: right here.
Richard Reed Parry, the multi-talented musician out of Montreal's rich and striking music-scene, is probably best known for his work as a core member of Arcade Fire and the band's unique sound-design. Parry is the leading force and creative head of Bell Orchestre, being responsible for the remarkably complex instrumental compositions.
Very recently, the composer released Music for Heart and Breath(Deutsche Grammophon), several pieces for ensemble – duet up to octet.
Tempo and development of the individual parts depend literally on the heart beat of the musicians - by listening through stethoscopes to the beat of their very own hearts - they are bound to follow them.
For Deutsche Grammophon's Yellow Lounge, stargaze and Richard Reed Parry will team up and present the German premiere of Music for Heart and Breath
After our successful first residence in 2013, stargaze has yet again been invited to be the resident instrumental ensemble throughout this year's edition of the Haldern-Pop festival in Germany.
Together with Grant Hart we will perform his current Album The Argument ( world premiere )
We will perform with the wonderful My Brightest Diamond, singer/songwriter Alexi Murdoch and furthermore perform two instrumental pieces by Bryce Dessner and David Lang ( featuring Shara Worden ).
Prior to the concerts stargaze will undertake workshops ( stargaze labs ) for future collaborations in a studio setting . We are happy about this ongoing relationship and to establish a laboratory for collaborative practices within current pop and contemporary classical music.
Please watch this space for more upcoming details.
tickets: sold out ( way early, as always )
Here is the most current list of all our shows and collaborations at Haldern Pop 2014:
Thu 17.40 church - with Ed Harcourt
Thu 19.00 church - with Grant Hart
Thu 22.55 spiegelzelt - with The Slow Show
Fri 11.45 church - Dessner's Tenebre
Fri 12.00 church - Death Speaks with Shara Worden
Fri 14.30 church - with Alexi Murdoch
Fri 17.30 main stage - with My Brightest Diamond
We're delighted to announce that the Kilkenny Arts Festival invited stargaze to devise and perform a concert at St. Canice's Cathedral on August 14th. In collaboration with the festival, stargaze will present the premiere performance of a new, expanded ensemble project with The Dodos (followed by our concert in Berlin).
On the same night stargaze will also give the Irish premiere of Death Speaks (by David Lang) with and written for soloist Shara Worden ( My Brightest Diamond).
To end the evening, we will team up with the wonderful guitarist Bill Frisell and many more guests of Kilkenny Arts Festival to present an 'all-star-gaze-version' of Terry Riley's In C, one of stargaze's signature pieces: another chapter in our ongoing series reinterpreting this icon of minimal music.
In addition, on August 13th stargaze will accompany My Brightest Diamond and present new songs from her forthcoming album This is my Hand (Asthmatic Kitty Records).
festival trailer: here ( and embedded below )
stargaze plays the Into The Great Wide Open Festival 2014 as the ensemble in residence on the dutch island Vlieland.
We will be presenting works by Bryce Dessner (The National): Tenebre and Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire): Music for Heart and Breath. Listen to the ensemble works in the church, while further songs, like the Chamber Variations of Deerhoof (yes, Deerhoof songs arranged for ensemble) will lead us onto the forest stage.
show time table:
Fri 20:00 – 23:45 - In Het Boos - stargaze presents: Aart Strootman – Reichmarathon
Sat 15:30 – 16:30 - Church Stage - stargaze performs: Bryce Dessner’s Tenebre, RR Parry’s Music for Heart and Breath.
Sun 12:00 – 13:00 - Forrest Stage - stargaze performs: covers and pieces from Sufjan Stevens, The Sound, Deerhof and others.
tickets: sold out.
festival info: here.
merchandise: our brand new bags will be available ( logo designed for stargaze by Anne Caesar ).
on june 10th, the young british band these new puritans released their third album field of reeds on the infectious label. Recorded at Nalepa Studios in Berlin, this album featured a line-up of stargaze musicians who already accompanied the only german hidden live show, including orchestral ensemble, children's choir, two pianos and two vibraphones.
stargaze also teamed up singer/composer jack barnett with dutch composer michel van der aa to co-compose and arrange one of the tracks, the light in your name. The musical arrangements on field of reeds lead the band even further away from set definitions of pop-music, merging with chamber music and presenting a unique and unconventional style of songwriting.
For The Rest Is Noise Festival at amsterdam's muziekgebouw aan't IJ, These New Puritans will now perform their expanded-show for the second time, conducted by andré de ridder and performed by stargaze musicians.
LA-based multiinstrumentalist Julia Holter is well known for her dreamy but complex compositions blurring the lines between modern classical and indie-pop.
stargaze and Holter will be working together closely on this premier chamber-orchestral realisation and performance of tracks from her three albums, the 2011 released Tragedy, 2012's Ekstasis and her most recent, Loud City Song.
This is an event initiated by stargaze and specially commissioned by the Barbican Centre London, and constitutes stargaze' swift return visit to one of the world's most enterprising music venues.
More info and tickets: here.
Preview Gig Gallery: The Line of Best fit
Any plans for NYE yet? Too many even? Let us help you to decide: stargaze will be part of the New Years Eve Celebrations at ACUD, a new cultural space in Berlin. The program is curated and chosen by Casper Clausen and we are sure that it's going to be a fun night full of concerts, DJ-acts and very good friends on multiple levels! stargaze will play the Deerhoof Chamber Variations and rumor has it that Deerhoof's own Greg Saunier will be around as well.
tickets: 10 EUR
doors: 21:00
facebook event page: here
After initiating an on-going stream of In C interpretations with artists such as Matthew Herbert, Bill Frisell, Sam Amidon, Mouse on Mars, Tyondai Braxton, Pantha du Prince and The Bell Laboratory, Owen Pallett and Nils Frahm (have you seen the video yet?) s t a r g a z e has been invited to perform on the opening night of the World Minimal Music Festival in front of the composer – Terry Riley – himself. There will be electronics, baroque-tuned instruments and African influences and who knows, maybe Riley himself will join us on stage?
The Dodos: No Color / Carrier - with stargaze
In autumn 2013 The Dodos released their fifth album Carrier (Polyvinyl), mostly characterized by Meric Long's virtuous fingerpicking on the guitar and Logan Kroeber's driving drums. Although primarily working as a duo, they've repeatedly incorporated instrumental parts in their compositions – strings, trombone, horn and vibraphone – as well as having worked with San Francisco's Magik*Magik Orchestra. The Dodos and stargaze will present new arrangements ( by stargaze ) of songs from Carrier as well as No Color.
For July 2015 the new classical music festival Wonderfeel invited s t a r g a z e as the ensemble in residence on their Fusion of Arts stage.
Performing once again instrumental and without any additional guests, the collective will perform string-quartets by Bryce Dessner and Sufjan Stevens, compositions by Richard Reed Parry and Greg Saunier as well as David Lang's Death Speaks, originally written for Shara Worden, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly and Owen Pallett; now performed by stargaze' own David Six (piano), Aart Strootman (guitar), Jeffrey Bruinsma (violin) as well as Nora Fischer (voice). Next to performing the above mentioned compositions, stargaze will write and arrange new material for the last concert day.
program:
Bryce Dessner – Tenebrae
Richard Reed Parry – Music for Heart and Breath
Sufjan Stevens – Movements from Run Rabbit Run
Greg Saunier – Deerhoof Chamber Variations
David Lang – Death Speaks
new arrangements by stargaze
David Lang – Death Speaks
In 2015 we returned to Haldern Pop and joined Bear's Den as well as The Slow Show on stage. We also performed a nice little Bach cantata together with our friends from Cantus Domus, and played a few instrumental numbers: Next to string quartets from Sufjan Stevens and our interpretation of Grateful Dead's "What's Become Of The Baby" from Day of The Dead, we also performed our Deerhoof Chamber Variations at the Spiegeltent.
Canadian singer/songwriter, violinist and composer Owen Pallett and s t a r g a z e will premiere new and unheard material from what will be his supposedly 5th LP, written for our 11-piece ensemble. This concert is a collaboration between Berlin's newly founded Pop-Kultur Festival and the Ruhrtriennale. We will play Berlin's Berghain on August 26th at 11pm and at PACT Zollverein both September 5th and 6th at 8pm.
tickets: and more info here .
It's Terry Riley's 80th birthday and the Ruhrtriennale will celebrate the godfather of minimal music with an evening of In C performances by Mouse on Mars and Tyondai Braxton with Sonic Robots (originally commissioned by stargaze) and Africa Express, the renowned project by Damon Albarn, uniting musicians from Africa and the US/Europe.
Being part of the evening as well, the young producer/DJ Koreless from Scotland will present his composition Cycles I for 10 strings played by members of stargaze.
Canadian singer/songwriter, violinist and composer Owen Pallett and s t a r g a z e will premiere new and unheard material from what will be his supposedly 5th LP, written for our 11-piece ensemble. This concert is a collaboration between Berlin's newly founded Pop-Kultur Festival and the Ruhrtriennale. We will play Berlin's Berghain on August 26th at 11pm and at PACT Zollverein both September 5th and 6th at 8pm.
tickets: and more info here .
on june 10th, the young british band these new puritans released their third album field of reeds on the infectious label. Recorded at Nalepa Studios in Berlin, this album featured a line-up of stargaze musicians who already accompanied the only german hidden live show , including orchestral ensemble, children's choir, two pianos and two vibraphones.
stargaze also teamed up singer/composer jack barnett with dutch composer michel van der aa to co-compose and arrange one of the tracks, the light in your name. The musical arrangements on field of reeds lead the band even further away from set definitions of pop-music, merging with chamber music and presenting a unique and unconventional style of songwriting, which the band and stargaze already presented at last year's The Rest is Noise Festival in Amsterdam.
For sacrum profanum festival in krakow, These New Puritans will now perform their expanded-show for the third time only, conducted by andré de ridder and performed by stargaze musicians.
Richard Reed Parry , the multi-talented musician out of Montreal's rich and striking music-scene, is probably best known for his work as a core member of arcade fire and the band's unique sound-design. Parry is the leading force and creative head of bell orchestre, being responsible for the remarkably complex instrumental compositions.
In 2014, the composer released music for heart and breath(Deutsche Grammophon), several pieces for ensemble – duet up to octet.
Tempo and development of the individual parts depend literally on the heart beat of the musicians - by listening through stethoscopes to the beat of their very own hearts - they are bound to follow them.
After playing the german premiere of music for heart and breath, the musicians of stargaze will now team up with Aaron and Bryce Dessner (The National) and Richie Parry himself.
s t a r g a z e is very honored to be invited by sacrum profanum festival in beautiful krakow for the very first time and to not only play one but two concerts!
- Dates:
September 13th – These New Puritans, stargaze and Synergy Vocals London
September 15th – Aaron and Bryce Dessner, Richie Parry and stargaze perform Music for Heart and Breath
we are excited to announce that s t a r g a z e, in the form of a 25-piece orchestra, recently recorded original music composed by Bryce Dessner for the soundtrack of Iñárritu's upcoming feature "The Revenant", alongside music by Ryūichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto. The film, starring Leonardo di Caprio, Domnhal Gleeson and Tom Hardy, hits US screens in late December and is released in Europe in January
s t a r g a z e is excited to be part of the new festival by the Haldern Pop Team, taking us to the Italian Alps this time – to the tiny and idyllic village of Kaltern! Next to drinking wine and swimming in the lake we are already working on arrangements with Emil (Loney Dear) and we will join our friends from The Slow Show again. Rumor has it that we might share the stage with Chad Lawson as well as All The Luck In The World too. Oh and there will be another performance of Richard Parry's Music for Heart and Breath ! So see you in the mountains!
More info here
s t a r g a z e signs to Transgressive Records London
Debut EP 'Deerhoof Chamber Variations' out on December 4th
We are very proud to announce that s t a r g a z e have signed to the much lauded Transgressive Records label, home of such bands as Foals and the up-and-coming Alvvays and Gengahr to name but a few. Transgressive was recently awarded Label Of The Year by AIM Independent Label Association and we are extremely excited to enter into a collaboration with them, and we'll keep you up-to-date as to future plans and releases!
We launch this hopefully pioneering relationship with the premiere recording of Greg Saunier's 'Deerhoof Chamber Variations', out on December 4th!
Deerhoof Chamber Variations is devised as a continuous piece of instrumental music, based on 9 1/2 songs which drummer and composer Greg Saunier originally wrote for his acclaimed band Deerhoof. Different from most other band and orchestra/classical collaborations Greg himself arranged and recomposed the material for a classical chamber ensemble, using exactly the same notes as in the originals while rearranging the songs structurally, in a kind of miniaturizing and abstracting way. Therby coalescing their essence, he somehow managed to still enhance and bring out the quirkyness, the harmonic and melodic originality and eccentricity of these pieces. Talking of eccentricity: Just as he eliminated his own part (drums) first, he used two instead of one singer, subtracting most words from their parts and using their voices and fragments of the original singing parts more like instruments themselves.
So the transformation is complete!
watch the "data" video on vimeo
watch the "data" video on youtube - except in Germany
order the 12" from transgressive
download from itunes
- reviews:
Drunken Werewolf - “Ebbing and flowing through the entire spectrum of human emotions, the sections weave beautiful, lilting lines though haunting, unsettling backdrops of instrumentation.”
The Music - 3.5/5 - “Stargaze debuts with a brilliant and totally left-of-centre take on the work of an indie-rock powerhouse.”
The Skinny - 4/5 - “the effects are dazzling.”
You can find all information on our festival site
A weekend in December, a stage in Berlin-Mitte and 14 musical performances oscillating between the poles of revitalized classical music, electroacoustic pop and folk form the coordinates of a music festival that is so thrilling, so coherent and so much more uptodate than the otherwise long-unquestioned mode of festivals that one can speak of a potentially groundbreaking musical event for Berlin.
André de Ridder – the Berlin-based conductor and founder of the trailblazing and internationally acclaimed stargaze ensemble – found himself wondering why in Germany, and especially in Berlin, there was not a curated festival in the spirit of All Tomorrow’s Parties (ATP): Rather than being a mere musical showcase, such a festival could seek moments of epiphany, illumination and enlightenment – requiring an arc that is larger, carefully curated and not clouded by compromise.
At first glance, it appears that very different artistic positions will collide at the Volksbühne on 11, 12 and 13 December. Of course, on closer inspection they turn out to be deliberately assembled puzzle pieces, which together form a great musical panorama. The special thing about stargaze Weekender is its ability to relate to today’s pop listening habits, while at the same time challenging them. It should be mentioned that the London indie label Transgressive Records recently signed stargaze under contract – but as what? As a band? As a classical contemporary ensemble? None of these terms can precisely describe it. Beyond here lies the unknown.
Founded two and a half years ago, the collective of curators and musicians is internationally well-connected in the pop and electronic worlds and performs in various formations. They are heralded from the Boiler Room (“renegade classical ensemble”) to the Barbican in London, to Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, where stargaze did not merely perform with Terry Riley, but indeed acted as a source of ideas and innovation. Now in the context of its Weekender, stargaze returns to Berlin, bringing together the loose ends and existing energy lines of the recent interventions in concert.
But let’s take it day by day.
Friday night (11 December)
has spiritual music as the theme – thus addressing a basic need in our throughly rationalized time, which in all its technocratic strive for perfection still painfully feels the presence of an absence. Translated into the language of music, one might speak of a modern classical variant of saudade, the popular Portuguese style of music that so masterfully translates the loss and the intangibility of the absent into melodies and moods. stargaze has managed to put together a program that approaches the topic of spirituality in music in an almost Dadaist manner: A newly arranged Bach Cantata #150, “For you, Lord, is my longing” and a piece entiteled “Grateful Dead – What’s Become of the Baby” form the core of the opening night. Both will be performed by stargaze ensemble and Cantus Domus. “Death Speaks”, for soprano, violin, guitar and piano, was composed by the Pulitzer Prize winner David Lang. Lang took words from many Schubert songs and reassembled them in a new libretto, a collage about death. Like last year, the evening, and thus the three-day festival, will be opened by a string quartet from Bryce Dessner, which he wrote for the Kronos Quartet: “Tenebrae”. De Ridder: “Tenebrae is a three-day Catholic Mass before Easter beginning on Maundy Thursday. During the sermon,15 candles are extinguished, one after another, until it gets dark. This piece describes this Mass in retrospect, so it moves towards the light.” The overarching question of the first evening is: What are the sources when spirituality finds its voice anew as a subject in pop music (and pop culture)?
Saturday night (12 December)
delves deep into the Folk of Eastern Europe — and takes the audience into the world of Bela Bartók and György Ligety (as well as Jonny Greenwood). When Bartók’s “Three Village Scenes” is collaged, or rather infiltrated, by the indie folk band A Hawk And A Hacksaw, a circle is closed that has already been drawn at many stargaze events in recent years. According to de Ridder’s reading, Bartók is nothing more than the tonal and rhythmic language of folk in a different guise. A Hawk And A Hacksaw from New Mexico, in turn, have toured South-Eastern Europe and work much like Bartók: they go into the villages, play for the local folk and adjust themselves to suit them. With stargaze, and especially this Weekender, it’s always about the permeability of pop and classical music. György Ligety’s Cello Concerto for solo cello and a for the evening specifically assembled allstargaze Orchestra (feat. Solistenensemble Kaleidoscope) in turn refers to the evening’s international guest star, Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. He has always stressed that Ligety and Bartók have been decisive influences of his compositions and film scores. To be performed on the Friday night is his suite “There Will Be Blood”, composed for the eponymous film by Paul Thomas Anderson. Indeed, the evening is also committed another narrative: the film score. Namely, the Cello Concerto by Ligety is familiar to us from pop culture as it underscored but the eight-minute break-in to the warehouse in Michael Mann’s film “Heat”. Without a word being spoken, during the scene we hear the entire first movement of Ligety’s work. This is reminiscent of Kubrick; cinema and folk as narrative lines amalgamating in an orchestral context.
Sunday night (13 December)
The finale is devoted to potentially groundbreaking collaborations** – the sensational Danish punk-noir band Iceage, whose sound swings dynamically between The Gun Club, the Bad Seeds and Joy Division, will perform in an unfamiliar dialogue with stargaze for the first time in Berlin. This clash of two worlds promises an intense, inspiring listening experience: the hypnotic-existentialist urgency of Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s vocals with the artificial, instrumental contribution of stargaze. It is as if Alexander Kluge’s famous phrase about the value of “using the Subway Map of Brooklyn to find one’s way in the Harz Mountains” is transferred to the reality of the stargaze concert stage. The musicians of stargaze and Rønnenfelt first got to know each other this year at the Haldern Pop Festival. De Ridder: “stargaze is characterized by the fact that we cooperate with all kinds of musicians. So on this evening the band Villagers from Ireland will perform with stargaze, and together we will also play new arrangements of the American composer Nico Muhly.” David Longstreth from Dirty Projectors is another of the evening’s potentially groundbreaking collaboration partners, here with a piece entitled “Michael Jordan” for double string quartet. Longstreth thus takes his place along the likes of Felix Mendelssohn on the extremely short list of composers to have written pieces for this instrumentation. De Ridder: “He always names his pieces after athletes who are so charged in the pop context that something happens to the music, as if it becomes more accessible as a result.“
Curtain.
One thing is certain: The audience will be witness to a clear course of contrasts, surprises, risks, key experiences and challenges. The stargaze Weekender thus promises real and pure entertainment, evoking the origins of folk and pop, but also of classical music: Nothing is generic, nothing is commercial, which – see Jonny Greenwood (see also Bach) – doesn’t mean that it won’t work in a Cinemascope movie, or on the main stage of the Volksbühne, or as a harbinger of a new festival culture. With the stargaze Festival, we are surely talking about the most exciting, illuminating as well as entertaining music festival to be held this autumn/winter.
- doors: 19:00 every day - starts: 20:00 every day
- tickets: here
In the summer of 2014 a fourteen-piece s t a r g a z e orchestral ensemble and the San Francisco band The Dodos , consisting of singer/guitarist Meric Logan and drummer Logan Kroeber, first presented a project that showcased the instrumentally multi-layered and -faceted songs of the band's back-catalogue in it's full glory. The arrangements were specially commissioned from stargaze by the Berlin Musicboard and Kilkenny Arts Festival, and receive their UK premiere on this occasion.
The Dodos just released their 5th studio album on January 26th, Individ, to critical acclaim, and will add a few of these new songs to the collaboration with the ensemble also.
And as special support of the show s t a r g a z e will perform the Deerhoof Chamber Variations !
Greg Saunier, drummer and co-songwriter of US-American indie-stalwarts Deerhoof , has written a songcycle "without words" based on original songs by the band, condensed into a series of snappy chamber-ensemble pieces including two female voices. The singers don't just replicate the original vocal lines, but are used in a rather instrumental, non-literal way, as part of the ensemble. The result are extremely beautiful, crystal-clear and neo-classical 'covers' which highlight the harmonic, rythmic and melodic richness of the original compositions.
Saunier recently recorded this work with s t a r g a z e and this is the UK premiere of Deerhoof Chamber Variations.
tickets: here .
Mica Levi is a British composer and musician, known from experimental pop group Micachu & The Shapes. Levi wrote the critically acclaimed soundtrack for cult film ‘Under The Skin’ , which starred Scarlett Johansson . This haunting soundtrack will now be performed live in its entirety for the first time in Europe by stargaze at a very special venue: de Grote Kerk, in the city centre of The Hague.
Mica Levi won a European Film Award for the Under The Skin OST, which was described by the Guardian as “a score that brings together strings, percussion, distortions in speed and clashing microphones to create sounds that are seductive, perverted and compassionate”. Rewire Festival presents the European premiere of the live performance of this soundtrack, which has only been performed live once before.
For Motel Mozaique stargaze now re-arranged Boards of Canada's highly acclaimed Hi Scores EP, the duos first significant release back in 1996 which wasn't technically the first album but nevertheless a taste of the later release Music Has The Right To Children, featuring some of the trademark sound-patterns of the the band. The arrangements of stargaze will be a world-premiere at this years Motel Mozaique and mark a further addition to the collective's growing catalogue of instrumental compositions. stargaze will also present their interpretation of Grateful Dead's What's Become Of The Baby of the very psychedelic album AOXOMOXOA, which the collective recorded for the upcoming Grateful Dead tribute Day of the Dead of the Red Hot Aids Foundation. Invited by Bryce Dessner (The National) to contribute to the album, stargaze re-interpreted the song with long-lasting drones and vocals provided by the musicians themselves.
- tickets: here
A tribute to the vast catalogue of Grareful Dead, curated by Aaron and Bryce Dessner, who which stargaze recorded a new version of "Whats Become Of The Baby", mixed by Andi Toma of Mouse on Mars.
Invited by Nils Frahm , who is curating a long weekender at the Barbican, s t a r g a z e will present an intimate set in the tranquil surroundings of the Barbican’s own parish church, St Giles’ Cripplegate, performing a few arrangements of our Boards of Canada - Hi scores project as well as a piece by Ryan Lott (Son Lux). And you will also find us on the main stage, performing Tristana together with Nils :)
It is with great pleasure and pride that we announce: s t a r g a z e, Berlin’s ‚new classical’ musicians collective, are performing a David Bowie tribute concert at this years BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London, on July 29th. The group’s growing profile at the cutting-edge of current collaborative practices between the realms of classical contemporary and avantgarde pop/rock and electronica has led the BBC to enlist the recently signed Transgressive artists and their artistic leader André de Ridder to pay hommage to Bowie’s influence beyond musical borders.
The concert will be a televised late-night Prom, featuring a wide range of specially commissioned new arrangements and re-imaginings of the great man’s song compositions in an ‚unplugged’ ensemble and semi-orchestral setting, and a number of international guest vocalists and musicians from different backgrounds.
stargaze will be supported by Amanda Palmer and Anna Calvi with Jherek Bischoff, and outstanding classical counter tenor Philippe Jarousky, for whom Pulitzer-Prize winning and Oscar-nominated composer David Lang will be writing a new piece based on a David Bowie song.
stargaze and André de Ridder will work closely with composers and arrangers to create a vision of the endurance and transcendental quality of Bowie’s music, exploring both his most popular and less widely know gems of his back-catalogue within a different, maybe unexpected sonic landscape.
The full line up features: Marc Almond, John Cale, The House Gospel Choir, Paul Buchanan, Elf Kid, Laura Mvula, Conor O'Brien of Villagers, Neil Hannon with arrangements of Anna Meredith, Michel van der Aa, David Land, Aart Strootman, André de Ridder, Greg Saunier and Jherek Bischoff.
Haldern Pop 2016 brought us together with This Is The Kit and Loney Dear, two musical friends of ours who we always love to share a stage with. And as always, we also had our own Haldern Church stage time, presenting Boards of Canada's Hi Scores as well as a few numbers of David Bowie, sung by various festival voices.
For the first edition of Alien Disko at Kammerspiele München, a weekend long festival curated and organized by The Notwist, we performed our Boards of Canada Hi Scores as well as our interpretation of Steve Reich's Music for Pieces of Wood. The amazing artwork and posters made for the festival are by Señor Burns.
In 2017, our in house composer and guitarist Aart Strootman was finalist (and in the end also winner) of the Gaudeamus International Composers Award and we were happy to support him on stage, premiering his new work Nyctophilia, written for stargaze, the experimental recorder-trio Axolot and Aart's own trio TEMKO.
Beach Boys - Variations on Smile, Part 1 by Aart Strootman
Berio Folk Songs - Black is the Color, I wonder as I wander, Loosin yelav, Rossignolet du bois
Berio - O King
Berio Folk Songs - Motettu de tristura, Malurous au’o uno fenno, A la feminisca, La Fiolare, Azerbeijan love song
Stockhausen - Stop and Start
Berio - Michelle II
Beach Boys - Variations on Smile , Part 2 by Morris Kliphuis
We were asked to look at 1967, taking Sgt. Pepper as an axis but considering everything else that could have happened in music that year, whatever the genre. In 1967, pop took hold of the musical avant-garde, pushing the limits while simultaneously managing to express the thoughts and feelings of the whole new generation.
The Class of '67 project strives to make the Beatles of 1967 resonate with several major contemporaries, namely the Beach Boys, Luciano Berio and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Performed by stargaze musicians with soprano Nora Fischer, the program combines several pieces by Berio (Folk Songs, one of his reinterpretations of "Michelle" by The Beatles and O King), Stop und Start by Stockhausen and a special creation by stargaze. This creation was developed from unfinished Beach Boys tracks from sessions of the legendary Smile album, which was supposed to be released in 1967 but was never completed.
The Beach Boys then exerted a great influence on the Beatles, through their records but also through their experiments in the studio - experiments largely unearthed via the edition of the Smile Sessions published a few years ago. The tapes from these sessions contain a lot of instrumentals and sketches. We had the idea to rework some of these sketches into pieces that are both tributes and pieces in their own right. In addition, Paul McCartney is known to have a passion for Stockhausen's electronic music, with the Beatles themselves using and exploring new studio techniques to reinvent their sound and arrangements. We focused on Stop, a piece that Stockhausen composed at that time and of which he then devised a version for synthesizers and acoustic instruments, Stop und Start, which seems to point towards the future of all pop music. Paul McCartney also had a great interest in the work of Berio, who also rearranged several Beatles songs. O King was written in 1967 and reflects the political situation of the day as well as the context in which the groups were working. Berio and Stockhausen represent opposing poles in the field of new music of the 1960s. It shows how much musicians like Paul McCartney were open to different genres and musical languages.
Rather than playing the pieces separately, in a purist spirit, we will try to make this concert a kind of collage, capable of reflecting the various music and influences - and perhaps also the chaos that reigned in the minds of these musicians in 1967.
Our string section featuring Mayah Kadish, Alistair Sung and Thora Sveinsdottir joined compositions of Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Monteverdi, our guitarist Aart Strootman presented Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint and joined the Schumann Street Project, we presented Greg Saunier's Fugazi arrangements the first time (with Mayah Kadish, Ausias Garrigos Morant and Liam Byrne) accompanied by artworks of Mark Titchner. Of course the whole ensemble also had an evening to herself: We presented new material together with Nik Cold Void, Daniel Brandt and performed Qasim Naqvi's Inaugural Music.
On March 1st to 4th 2018 we toured the Netherlands - home to many of stargaze - as part of the (sadly now defunkt) Cross-linx Festival. On each varied evening, Cross-linx connected composed new music and artists from the avant-garde pop scene.
We presented the epic Music For The Long Emergency with Poliça as well as a set of old and new hits with perennial favourites This Is The Kit in not 1 but 4 cities and venues: De Doelen Rotterdam, Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ Amsterdam, Muziekgebouw Eindhoven and Wilminktheater Enschede.
Cross-linx didn’t just steer from the trodden path in a figurative way: the festival also found musical adventures in unusual places within concert halls... some of our stargazers (Mayah Kadish and Alistair Sung) appeared on these stages around the venues for intimate solo performances in unusual settings.
Previous editions of the festival saw acts performing such as Ane Brun, Hauschka, Nils Frahm, Patrick Watson, Son Lux, Ólafur Arnalds, The National, Mark Lanegan, Nico Muhly, Owen Pallett, Squarepusher, Efterklang, The Ex, José González, My Brightest Diamond, Spinvis, Bryce Dessner, Andrew Bird and Yann Tierssen, They co-operated with ensembles such as Asko|Schönberg, Metropole Orkest, Lunatree, Holland Baroque Society and Amsterdam Sinfonietta.
For Haldern Pop 2018 we spent a week with Lisa Hannigan at the studio, rehearsing the arrangements of her beautiful songs, amongst them We The Drowned (orchestrated by Bryce Dessner) and Swan (arranged by André de Ridder). At Haldern Church we only gave a preview of what became a full concert and live album, later on recorded at Dublin's National Concert Hall.
Another main gig at Haldern Pop was our take over of the main stage, with "Hip Hop Orchestral" - for this we've arranged and sampled many beats taken from some of our favorite hip hop tracks, but we also sampled a few classical music numbers....joining us on stage, adding some spoken works on top of it: Astronautalis, Sampa The Great and The Lytics.
In 2014, our guitarist, arranger and "in-house" composer Aart Strootman mentioned his interest to translate Boards of Canada material onto acoustic instruments, decoding the rich sounds of the legendary electronic music duo. We performed his material in April; 2015 for the first time and from there the material developed and evolved up until we recorded at Colin Benders' Kytopia in Utrecht. In that sense, stay tuned for any spontaneous drop of Hi Scores!
In a time where electronic music was hyper rhythmic, futuristic and more digital than ever, Scottish duo Boards of Canada chose another path and landed at the other side of the spectrum. Warm synthesizer sounds and gloomy chorusses evoked nostalgia, allowing the listener to become aware that it is already the future and there is nothing but beauty in the analog past.
Melody and mood, prime ingredients of Board of Canada’s music, were screaming to get arranged into the strings and woodwinds of stargaze. By translating the synthesised sounds into physical instruments the group unravels the orchestral quality of Hi-Scores and brings the timeless chord progressions and elongated melodies from your headphones onto the stage. Brooms, sticks, strings and winds, played by the multi-instrumentalists of stargaze it fits the music like a glove.
Thank you Edinburgh International Festival for the invitation and the very good times at Leith Theatre!
In 2018 we had our second performance for the Gaudeamus Muziekweek in Utrecht, this time performing Nicole Lizee's Black Midi (which she re-arranged for stargaze) as well as Morris Kliphuis and Aart Strootman's interpretations of three songs from Beach Boys' Smile Sessions.
“Her antique-folk arrangements are deconstructed and brilliantly reassembled as sublimely orchestrated chamber pieces in which simplicity and sophistication waltz hand-in-hand” Uncut
“Terrific… this latest collaboration is a joy, adding fresh layers and cinematic elements to songs previously memorable for their haunting sparseness” Hot Press
“Spellbinding… her poetry emboldened by the multi-faceted backing, allowing the wonderment to expand multifariously.” The 405
Live In Dublin is comprised of one new cut titled ‘Bookmark’ and 13 more tracks plucked from Lisa Hannigan's extensive back-catalogue; one that’s spanned 17 years and several award nominations, from the Mercury Prize to Ireland’s Choice Music Prize and Meteor Music Awards. This meeting of minds captured on the album was the product of a chance-encounter at Cork’s Sounds From A Safe Harbour Festival in 2015. Both performing at the festival, it was there where Lisa met André.
The following summer, at Berlin’s PEOPLE Festival, stargaze would end up inviting Lisa to perform a couple of her songs with them on stage and the project spiraled on from there. “Walking in I felt vaguely trepidatious. Sometimes working with classically trained musicians can be slightly nerve-wracking as a singer songwriter because they speak a language so beautifully fluently that I can only fumble towards,” Hannigan recalls: “In a band, so much communication is done through the shoulders, the lift of an eyebrow, the feel of a small group breathing and dancing together. It’s hard to extrapolate that out into twenty, forty, even eighty people! It can feel like a glorious ocean liner tied to a creaking rowboat.”
Thankfully, Lisa’s apprehensions would prove to be unfounded: “When we started to play though, it felt like all of stargaze had climbed aboard my rowboat. They approach a song very much as a band would, with an enthusiasm and musicality which immediately felt like home. I was overwhelmed to hear my songs in such a widescreen way, going from black and white to technicolour, and hoped we could do more.” And just like that, the idea of a live album was born: “The idea of eventually making a record and playing more together felt very natural and easy. Having made three records of my own I had a notion of making a live record but wanted to do it in a slightly more unusual way. We called on some wonderful arrangers over the following couple of years and built our setlist up one song and festival at a time.”
Some words about the project from Aart Strootman, who arranged the material: "The idea is the following: nowadays there are more and more signs that compact discs will at some point not function anymore on regular hi-fi sets. Unlike vinyl there will be a moment that these discs are somewhat worthless. Now imagine yourself being an overenthusiastic musicologist in the year 2248 and you want to reshape this once-very-popular record made by a singer from Iceland having only bits and pieces.... It would become archeology, and some decisions simple have to be made based on interpretation. That's what this rendition kind of is.
Björk’s album Debut is a masterpiece I believe, but there are really funny things happening in for example the fade outs. It was really hot in the '90s to end every single piece with a fade out. On Debut there are no less then 10 (on a 12-song record). But check out the fade out of 'aeroplane': we hear the beginning of some sort of tango but it's gone before we know it. In this 'restoration' it became a solo strings moment... Also 'like someone in love' isn't actually Björk’s piece but a Bill Evans piano solo I orchestrated. To make a long story short I redrew the piece based on deliberate misconceptions and historically incorrect flaws. What it gives (I hope) is an interesting instrumental version of the whole cd - that will be recognized by everyone who knows the album (with hopefully a smile on the face)."
For Record Store Day 2019 we released Instruments - A Track By Track Re-Composition of Fugazi's In On The Killtaker kindly arranged by our friend Greg Saunier.
Here is what André says and thinks about this project of ours: ''This project is not meant be 'referential' at all, but for me it’s a new work of art, literally New Music, inspired by a number of things to do with IOTK and the band. I find the band’s music expresses a great deal of vulnerability and struggle, very finely balanced with some visceral outbursts not just of anger, but of energy of an encouraging and uplifting nature. Our record is also a tribute to the film 'Instrument' - the band after all had a penchant for instrumental tracks or long instrumental passages, which are in itself periods of either reflection, where the words sink deeper, or in fact where the words would fail - hence 'Instruments' in which we feature each of our group’s single 'instruments' in their individuality and their negotiation of (or 'struggle' with) the material. The loud/quiet model is just one example of a musical trope explored here over the course of the whole record, with the acoustic/busting nature of some of these pieces, relaying as a voice on the street, directly to the people. These new instrumentals (quiet wordless pieces) being maybe the equivalent of the still film portraits of the women and men waiting in line at Fugazi shows in the 'Instrument' film. That’s how I literally see them.
Then there is the coming together of all instruments in the last song, where the players also sing, as well as using their instruments: it becomes even more personal. A couple more songs are realised in smaller ensembles, too. 'Rend It' becomes a deep harmony, a lament in the way I read many Fugazi songs which make them relatable to that old vocal and operatic form musically and lyrically.
It’s fascinating to me that the composer Greg Saunier claims to have never listened to a single Fugazi song before we put this idea to him, yet intuitively his compositions incorporate all this. Plus, his own band and his own public expressions all abide by very similar or the same rigorous musical, operational, and political principles as Fugazi’s.
For me the whole project is a celebration of the vital role and 'publicness' of music, its lasting impact, and its building and re-building over and over of communities and humanity.''
“Her antique-folk arrangements are deconstructed and brilliantly reassembled as sublimely orchestrated chamber pieces in which simplicity and sophistication waltz hand-in-hand” Uncut
“Terrific… this latest collaboration is a joy, adding fresh layers and cinematic elements to songs previously memorable for their haunting sparseness” Hot Press
“Spellbinding… her poetry emboldened by the multi-faceted backing, allowing the wonderment to expand multifariously.” The 405
Live In Dublin is comprised of one new cut titled ‘Bookmark’ and 13 more tracks plucked from Lisa Hannigan's extensive back-catalogue; one that’s spanned 17 years and several award nominations, from the Mercury Prize to Ireland’s Choice Music Prize and Meteor Music Awards. This meeting of minds captured on the album was the product of a chance-encounter at Cork’s Sounds From A Safe Harbour Festival in 2015. Both performing at the festival, it was there where Lisa met André.
The following summer, at Berlin’s PEOPLE Festival, stargaze would end up inviting Lisa to perform a couple of her songs with them on stage and the project spiraled on from there. “Walking in I felt vaguely trepidatious. Sometimes working with classically trained musicians can be slightly nerve-wracking as a singer songwriter because they speak a language so beautifully fluently that I can only fumble towards,” Hannigan recalls: “In a band, so much communication is done through the shoulders, the lift of an eyebrow, the feel of a small group breathing and dancing together. It’s hard to extrapolate that out into twenty, forty, even eighty people! It can feel like a glorious ocean liner tied to a creaking rowboat.”
Thankfully, Lisa’s apprehensions would prove to be unfounded: “When we started to play though, it felt like all of stargaze had climbed aboard my rowboat. They approach a song very much as a band would, with an enthusiasm and musicality which immediately felt like home. I was overwhelmed to hear my songs in such a widescreen way, going from black and white to technicolour, and hoped we could do more.” And just like that, the idea of a live album was born: “The idea of eventually making a record and playing more together felt very natural and easy. Having made three records of my own I had a notion of making a live record but wanted to do it in a slightly more unusual way. We called on some wonderful arrangers over the following couple of years and built our setlist up one song and festival at a time.”
In June 2019 we played our first concert in Greece, in the beautiful capital of Athens, close to the Olympic Park for 'Nostros Summer Festival'. We once again came together with Lisa Hannigan and performed all the songs of our collaborative album and some more.
The All Together Now Festival in 2019 brought us back together with Lisa Hannigan.
The Haldern Pop 2019 edition brought us together (again) with our friend Anja Plaschg aka Soap&Skin. We were lucky to perform numbers from her new album From Gas to Solid and shared a beautiful set on stage of the Haldern Church. And we also brought some classical music to Haldern - Beethoven's 8th Symphony, but rearranged by Greg Saunier.
In August 2019, together with our beautiful friend Soap&Skin, we performed at the Grand Hall of Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, a summer festival-ccoperation with Kampnagel Hamburg. The house was sold out, the concert was streamed live and the energy on stage and in the audience really is unforgettable for us. You can re-watch the complete concert here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUS6DCzvxH8
In 2019 we teamed up with Helsinki Festival and presented three days of music at the Huvila Festival Tent. Together with Soap&Skin we opened the stage for Anna Calvi, and just the next day it was Anna Calvi joining us, together with Laetitia Sadier and Anja Plaschg for our tribute to David Bowie, performing his Blackstar album in a fully orchestrated version. And! We also performed our Bjoerk - Debut set, for the first time outside of The Netherlands. The last evening brought us together with our beautiful friend Lisa Hannigan.
For Crossing Borders Festival 2019 we met up with our friend Anja Plaschg alias Soap & Skin and performed her hauntingly beautiful live-set at De Nieuwe Kerk of The Hague. Crossing Borders is a literature meets music and performance festival in the midst of The Hague.
Mica Levi is a British composer and musician, known from experimental pop group Micachu & The Shapes. Levi wrote the critically acclaimed soundtrack for cult film ‘Under The Skin’ , which starred Scarlett Johansson . In 2016, we already performed the haunting soundtrack live in its entirety for the first time in Europe by stargaze for Rewire Festival in The Hague.
In 2019 we revisited this project, but this time added another live-component: we performed alongside the movie-screening!
Mica Levi won a European Film Award for the Under The Skin OST, which was described by the Guardian as “a score that brings together strings, percussion, distortions in speed and clashing microphones to create sounds that are seductive, perverted and compassionate”.
Our version developed in collaboration with electronic conceptional auteur Matthew Herbert, premiered on February 1 and 2 at the Barbican Centre London, coincidentally also the weekend ‚Brexit’ came into effect in the UK. In August 2020 we were able to open the season of Luzern Theater, again with our version of Beethoven NEIN, this time using the outdoor spaces of the theater as well.
This project is a very multifaceted affair, as the four movements became different projects each, bound by the central idea of the relationship between individual and society, the questions of ‚Equality’ and sisterhood and brotherhood of all human kind negotiated in Schiller’s Ode. The last movement is a community project, realized and arranged by Esmeralda Conde Ruiz, which enables choirs of all ages and abilities to sing the notoriously difficult piece, usually the domain more ambitious choral societies and professional choirs, in a much more humble and less noisy manner than is practice.
Seven artists, two villages, one live stream: a musical conversation between the West Coast of Ireland and the heart of Europe, between Haldern Pop and Other Voices. The musicians joining us from Dingle will be concertina player Cormac Begley, singer songwriter Lisa Hannigan and pianist Peter Broderick. The musicians joining us from Haldern will be experimental rock band Black Country New Road, alternative folk three piece All The Luck In The World and classical jazz poet Loney Dear. stargaze will present Beethoven ONE, a re-arrangement of Beethoven's 1st Symphony by Aart Strootman.
s t a r g a z e presents: Post-Beethoven-Fest 2021 at Volksbühne Berlin, an online festival presented by zart.tv
Owing to the laws of the Pandemic, our ‚weekend’ will be rung in early, and the festival will be streamed on Thursday the 10th and Friday 11th of June live from Berlin, and re-broadcast for the various time zones the days after (more about this below)
We are very excited to have a pioneering concert-stream media partner on board: zart.tv! With them, we promise an exciting new kind of experience for an online presented festival, including a special virtual installation room and foyer performance.
Beethoven - the aftermath: The – in classical music circles - much-anticipated Beethoven Year 2020 has largely fallen victim to Covid-19, and so did part of our year with Beethoven which included a concept of performing all of his nine symphonies in new re-composed versions by a diverse range of artists. Our quest to find out ‚what’s up with/left of Beethoven’ has found new meaning in 2021 in more than one way and so we have put our versions of his symphonies, which are already steeped in a 21st century perspective, in context with philosophical and pop-cultural lines in German art music ‚post Beethoven’.
There’ll be a host of premieres by composers Sarah Nemtsov, Nicole Lizée, Kate Moore, Josephine Stephenson, Matthew Herbert and Aart Strootman based on movements and ideas from Ludwig’s first, second, seventh, and ninth symphonies; opposite works by Stockhausen, Friedrich Nietzsche - performed by Holger Hiller (Palais Schaumburg) - Boards of Canada and Kraftwerk. Other artists involved include dancers Latisha Sparks, Zen and Miriam Arnold, the re-united Hamburg new-wave band 1000 Robota, and of course us ourselves, finally performing our project based on Boards Of Canada’s phenomenal album ‚Hi Scores’ for the first time in Germany, following our huge success at Edinburgh International Festival in 2019, featuring The Notwist’s Andi Haberl on drums.
Tickets are available here, and you can choose between three different time zones (Berlin, New York, Melbourne)
Festival Day 1 on June 10th (Berlin, New York, 8pm local time) and June 11th (Melbourne, 8pm)
Festival Day 2 on June 11th (Berlin, New York, 8pm local time) and June 12th (Melbourne, 8pm)
Our virtual doors open at 7.45pm every evening and the concert starts at 8pm with breaks in-between the pieces, so you can hang out at the virtual bar, visit the Merch store or one of the installation rooms.
Programme 10 June 2021
*Beethoven One
Composition: Aart Strootman (NL) with s t a r g a z e and André de Ridder
*1000 Robota
New and old songs, featuring a cover of “Autobahn” by Kraftwerk
*Boards Of Canada - Hi Scores+ Beethoven 7.2. with dance
Arrangement by BoC Hi Scores: Aart Strootman, s t a r g a z e
Arrangement by Beethoven 7.2.: André de Ridder, Mouse on Mars
with s t a r g a z e incl. Drummer Andi Haberl (The Notwist, Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra), dancers: Miriam Arnold, Latisha Sparks and Zen Jefferson
Programme 11.06.2021
*Karlheinz Stockhausen: STOP und START (for Synthesizer and acoustic instruments)
With s t a r g a z e and André de Ridder
*Beet2 – World Premiere
Composers
“Beet Two-1” Josephine Stephenson, UK
“Beet Two-2” Kate Moore, NL
“Beet Two-3” Sarah Nemtsov, DE
“Beet Two-4” Nicole Lizée, CAN
*Holger Hiller sings Nietzsche
Arrangements: Aart Strootman
With Holger Hiller and s t a r g a z e
Concept spaces on 10.06 and 11.06
*“ALONE” from Beethoven NEIN
s t a r g a z e and Matthew Herbert, concept
Mayah Kadish on violin
*“TOGETHER” from Beethoven NEIN
Sound installation by Matthew Herbert
ABC – (not) Another Beethoven Cycle has essentially come out of the question how it would be possible to present a cycle of all of Beethoven’s symphonies (the perceived pinnacle of the classical orchestral repertoire, and benchmark for every such ensemble) as a world-premiere. So the idea was to ask 9 different artists, not all composers or even musicians necessarily, to take one symphony each and make their own version or arrangement of it, or a new work based on it. We were specifically interested in involving individuals who would not normally perform this music, or have been educated on or in these works, whose relevance (which we believe in) may be questioned today, and should, not least in what was billed as the 250th anniversary year of the composer.
We started with no less than the monumental NINTH, including the famous Ode to Joy, which has recently come to renewed prominence as a kind of European anthem, sung by a massed choir and 4 soloists in the final movement of the work.
Our version developed in collaboration with electronic conceptional auteur Matthew Herbert, premiered on February 1 and 2 at the Barbican Centre London, coincidentally also the weekend ‚Brexit’ came into effect in the UK.
This project is a very multifaceted affair, as the four movements became different projects each, bound by the central idea of the relationship between individual and society, the questions of ‚Equality’ and sisterhood and brotherhood of all human kind negotiated in Schiller’s Ode. The last movement is a community project which enables choirs of all ages and abilities to sing the notoriously difficult piece, usually the domain more ambitious choral societies and professional choirs, in a much more humble and less noisy manner than is practice.
Although many of our Beethoven concerts got cancelled through 2020 (co-commissioners included the BBC Proms, the Helsinki Festival, Lucerne Theatre and Festival, the Barbican Centre and Cologne Philharmonie) we still managed to perform our versions of Beethoven ONE (re-composed by Aart Strootmann) and NINE again, in very different settings and circumstances, away from the classical concert hall usually home for these works. This was another objective of our project, to ‚disseminate’ this quite radical music and concepts amongst audiences that wouldn't usually even listen to Beethoven, through the lens of 21st century artists, in less formal settings (that were adaptable and would become successively more Covid-proof also, without much ado).
Beethoven EIGHT was arranged and re-composed for stargaze by Greg Saunier, composer and drummer of the US band Deerhoof and a long-term collaborator of ours. He re-arranged the order of the movements and partly combined them, in an artistic shuffle-play style, but kept tvery true to he musical material. Yet his idiosyncratic orchestration on the one hand pinpoints the particular characteristics of this symphony as well as highlights Saunier's own sense of groove and tempo in this work famous for it's 'metronomique' features.
Beethoven ONE "What I like about the third movement of the first symphony is that it's basically a scherzo (even though Beethoven doesn't call it that (yet)). The many, relatively short ideas are fantastic to mull over and over again, putting them in different perspective by orchestration, tempo and timbre. The overall curve of the piece is that I start the work almost as written (after a wink towards the opening of the first movement) and slow the music down more and more, stretching the notes and harmonies so that it ends in a sound that is close to the synthesizer music of Boards of Canada. I've arranged BoC's seminal album Hi-Scores for the group 4 years ago." (Aart Strootman)
Beethoven TWO For this symphony we asked four different composers to take on a movement each, and left the brief wide open as to how much they would 're-arrange/compose' or write pretty much a new, their one piece of music, taking elements of Beethoven's music as inspiration:
Josephine Stephenson - Beet 2-1
Kate Moore - 0202B.
Sarah Nemtsov - Scherzo
Nicole Lizée - 2 | IV
For our musicians, creative, individual multi-instrumentalists from different backgrounds who mostly decided against an orchestra career early on, and may have last played a Beethoven Symphony in youth orchestra, or never at all, the sense of discovery they experienced so far on this journey through Beethoven’s cosmos has been, in the words of some, quite ‚mind-blowing’ and therefore it’s become clear to us that we should continue this journey and project, regardless of Beethoven year or not. Beethoven was a child of the ‚Enlightenment’, an artist and personality engaged in public political discourse, intriguingly placed and immersed in the midst of Immanuel Kant’s and Schiller’s discussions of what Freedom, Education meant and what constitutes a self-responsible, morally ethical citizen.
Some eminent contemporary philosophers (most recently the German Markus Gabriel, who holds the chair of Modern Philosophy at.. coincidence?... Bonn University) have found evidence in 2020 for their claim that we need ‚a new enlightenment’, for our time. This extends of course beyond any solution for the pandemic and how we may or may not continue to live after, this includes of course the far more crucial impact of climate change and all it’s connected geopolitical ramifications.
An effort towards a new view and understanding of Beethoven’s music, firstly, cannot end at the close of 2020 and secondly, can communicate through art the necessity of this New Enlightenment.The third movement from Beethoven‘s First Symphony combined with all four from his Second (together compromising the „12th“) provide the starting point for this collaborative suite.
In 2014, our guitarist, arranger and "in-house" composer Aart Strootman mentioned his interest to translate Boards of Canada material onto acoustic instruments, decoding the rich sounds of the legendary electronic music duo. We performed his material in April; 2015 for the first time and from there the material developed and evolved up until we recorded at Colin Benders' Kytopia in Utrecht. In that sense, stay tuned for any spontaneous drop of Hi Scores!
In a time where electronic music was hyper rhythmic, futuristic and more digital than ever, Scottish duo Boards of Canada chose another path and landed at the other side of the spectrum. Warm synthesizer sounds and gloomy chorusses evoked nostalgia, allowing the listener to become aware that it is already the future and there is nothing but beauty in the analog past.
Melody and mood, prime ingredients of Board of Canada’s music, were screaming to get arranged into the strings and woodwinds of stargaze. By translating the synthesised sounds into physical instruments the group unravels the orchestral quality of Hi-Scores and brings the timeless chord progressions and elongated melodies from your headphones onto the stage. Brooms, sticks, strings and winds, played by the multi-instrumentalists of stargaze it fits the music like a glove.
we have been one of a handful of ensembles given a ‚ReLoad’-grant by the Bundeskulturstiftung (the German governments’ arts foundation – they already supported our Spitting Chamber Music project in 2017) for a project which could be developed, pursued and delivered under the current circumstances, as a way of continuing to work as a group remotely. Our proposal had the totally serious working-titel ‚starTracks’ – and involves commissions to 4 composers that are also known as producers. The brief is to write pieces for which each musician can record their parts at home, or even develop them in online conversations and workshops with the composer/producer. The tracks are then put together and finalized, possibly treated, remixed and layered back at the creators’ home/studio.
It’s a recording project foremost, one that we can present as a little album once mixing and mastering is done, but also a co-creative effort which puts each musician in direct exchange with the composer.
We chose artists that we already know a little or even very well, and vice versa, to get the most out of the short-term initiative, and while not being able to meet and work it out in person: And the names we can reveal are:
Nik Void (of Factory Floor), Tyondai Braxton, Greg Saunier and Arone Dyer.
„Hi Scores is a homogeny of electronic sound which can sometimes wash over the listener making for a more passive listening experience. stargaze bring Boards of Canada’s first EP to life through a live performance style that is vibrant and exhilarating to watch“ - the skinny gave us a 5star review for our Boards of Canada concert in 2018 (at Edinburgh International Festival) and now, 3 years later, we will bring this project to the NORD stage of Zurich's Theaterspektakel.
Opening the set: Aart Strootman (guitarist and arranger of Hi Scores) will play an acoustic tribute to Aphex Twin.
„If by any chance Boards of Canada were in attendance, they might have been amazed by the result.” (The HeraldScotland about our Hi Scores performance for EIF 2018)
s t a r g a z e' newest collaboration is with the lead singer of the band Buke and Gase, Arone Dyer. We are working with the US composer and vocalist on her emerging, highly individual solo material, with a view of making an album together, due for release in the spring of 2022. The record will be an instrumental song-cycle, with Arone accompanied solely by the contemporary-classical orchestration of s t a r g a z e. A succesful Kickstarter campaign to help fund the recording process and release was launched on January 28th 2021.
Arone and stargaze met and performed together at the PEOPLE Festival and residency in Berlin in 2018 which was co-curated by The National's twin-brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner, and subsequently decided to embark on an album project. Arone's other creative outputs include her band Mistresses, the Drone-choir project, and composing music for various other occasions, groups and individuals.
By now - April 2022 - the LP is fully mixed and mastered and waiting for its release somewhere in Autumn 2022!
ABC - (not) Another Beethoven Cycle became an ongoing series of rip-offs and and conceptional explorations of the composer’s symphonies we encouraged our favorite composers to get into (often described as ‚recomposed‘ projects). Our list of artists diving into Ludwig Van: Kate Moore, Josephine Stephenson, Nicole Lizee, Sarah Nemtsov (they all together form the new Second Symphony) Aart Strootman (3rd movement, 1st symphony) and Greg Saunier (Eighth Symphony).
“Her antique-folk arrangements are deconstructed and brilliantly reassembled as sublimely orchestrated chamber pieces in which simplicity and sophistication waltz hand-in-hand” Uncut
“Terrific… this latest collaboration is a joy, adding fresh layers and cinematic elements to songs previously memorable for their haunting sparseness” Hot Press
“Spellbinding… her poetry emboldened by the multi-faceted backing, allowing the wonderment to expand multifariously.” The 405
Live In Dublin is comprised of one new cut titled ‘Bookmark’ and 13 more tracks plucked from Lisa Hannigan's extensive back-catalogue; one that’s spanned 17 years and several award nominations, from the Mercury Prize to Ireland’s Choice Music Prize and Meteor Music Awards. This meeting of minds captured on the album was the product of a chance-encounter at Cork’s Sounds From A Safe Harbour Festival in 2015. Both performing at the festival, it was there where Lisa met André.
The following summer, at Berlin’s PEOPLE Festival, stargaze would end up inviting Lisa to perform a couple of her songs with them on stage and the project spiraled on from there. “Walking in I felt vaguely trepidatious. Sometimes working with classically trained musicians can be slightly nerve-wracking as a singer songwriter because they speak a language so beautifully fluently that I can only fumble towards,” Hannigan recalls: “In a band, so much communication is done through the shoulders, the lift of an eyebrow, the feel of a small group breathing and dancing together. It’s hard to extrapolate that out into twenty, forty, even eighty people! It can feel like a glorious ocean liner tied to a creaking rowboat.”
Thankfully, Lisa’s apprehensions would prove to be unfounded: “When we started to play though, it felt like all of stargaze had climbed aboard my rowboat. They approach a song very much as a band would, with an enthusiasm and musicality which immediately felt like home. I was overwhelmed to hear my songs in such a widescreen way, going from black and white to technicolour, and hoped we could do more.” And just like that, the idea of a live album was born: “The idea of eventually making a record and playing more together felt very natural and easy. Having made three records of my own I had a notion of making a live record but wanted to do it in a slightly more unusual way. We called on some wonderful arrangers over the following couple of years and built our setlist up one song and festival at a time.”
A NEW SONG OF THE EARTH
»Let’s do something new,« said Dave Longstreth of the Dirty Projectors and André de Ridder, leader of the experimental Berlin orchestra collective stargaze, when they met at the Sydney Festival in 2013. And indeed, the composer and frontman of the famous American rock band kept his word: Following one of his recent singles »Earth Crisis«, he now created »Song of the Earth in Crisis« for the musicians of stargaze. Longstreth, who founded the Dirty Projectors back in 2002 in New York, explains: »In the 111 years since Gustav Mahler’s ›Song of the Earth‹ was first performed, our relationship to the earth has changed dramatically. So it seemed time to reframe that idea.«
review: Dirty-Projectors-Konzert-in-Hamburg (taz)
world premiere: August 12th 2021 at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
commissioned by: Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Barbican London, National Concert Hall Dublin, deSingel Antwerp and Helsinki Festival
soloists: Felicia Douglass, David Longstreth
conductor: André de Ridder
musicians:
Isa Goldschmeding- Violin (Elbphilharmonie)
Mayah Kadish - Violin (deSingel)
Shelley Sörensen - Violin
Thora Sveinsdottir - Viola
Alister Sung - Cello
Caimin Gilmore - Double Bass
Ramon Lormans - Percussion
Georgi Tsenov - Percussion
Vitalii Kyianytsia- Piano, Electric Organ
Maaike van der Linde - Flute, Voice
Marlies van Gangelen - Oboe
Daniel Boeke - Clarinet
Romain Bly - Horn, Trumpet
Ian Sankey - Trombone
For our first ever foray into the dance world, s t a r g a z e co-created the music for a new production of renowned choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan and his dance company Teac Damsa. Mám is a co-production of the Dublin Theatre Festival, Sadler's Wells London, and the New Zealand Festival. Musically, the project started with workshops of Irish Concertina player and stargaze in Berlin and London, and adding dancers, in Auckland over a period of more than a year. Based on traditional material interpreted by Begley, stargaze created a series of new pieces, improvisations, interludes and arranged accompaniments that Keegan-Dolan and his dancers responded to and vice -versa. In a unique co-creative process music and dance developed in parallel,refined in a shared six weeks rehearsal process in the remote village of Dingle in West-Kerry, spiritual home of Teac Damsa (and actual home of Begley and MKD)
André de Ridder about MÁM:
MÁM is a dance project we were invited on by choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan and his company Teac Damsa. It started with tentative workshops between our musicians and Irish Concertina player Cormac Begley, to explore if we could find a common language and vibe in playing together, quite possibly towards making new music together. We met twice, in Berlin and Amsterdam (stargaze’ two headquarters, you may count Rotterdam in now as a third one) before three of our musicians were invited to travel to New Zealand (as New Zealand Festival was one of the main co-producers of the work) in February 2019 to take part in further workshops that this time involved the dancers as well! I’d say that by the time the actual project started for good, we had developed a pretty good understanding of each others’ personalities, artistry and aims. The week in Wellington also produced some musical material that, alongside Cormac’s original tunes, would form the backbone of the music for MÀM.
Then, in the summer of 2019, stargaze spent no less than 5 weeks with the whole company in West-Kerry, in the beautiful little fishing town of Dingle, home of Keegan-Dolan, rehearsing and creating the final work in a community centre.
As a conductor, I am used to an orchestra, as in the musicians joining a music theatre or dance production fairly last minute, 1 – 2 weeks (often less) before the premiere, with not much room for maneuver structurally or musically. The music has been set all along. This was an entirely different process, that not only made us co-creators of the score, but the whole work took its shape under the influence of every individual dancer and musician in the room. I think it’s no hyperbole to say that this experience changed everyone’s outlook on what we do, our creative roles and processes completely and irreversibly.
And that’s before I even talk about the content of MÀM, which casts a group of people, maybe family, old and new friends, couples, a society in a place where togetherness, apartness, love and loss, support, meetings farewells are undergoing multiple manifestations and transformations like life has to, to be complete. A longing, a real struggle for but succeeding in the coming together of human kinds (sic) lays at the heart of the very emotional piece – and therefore touched on everything we are going through this year and need to consider for our future.
Shows
Premiere at Dublin Theatre Festival in September 2019
Sadlers Wells, London, in February 2020
Perth Festival, Australia, in February 2020
New Zealand Festival of the Arts, Wellington, New Zealand, in March 2020
Teatros del Canal Madrid, Madrid, in December 2021
Internationale Maifestspiele Wiesbaden, Germany, in May 2022
What did you know as a kid, that you forgot when you grew up? Can you go back to this childlike knowledge, or is it lost forever? Composer Morris Kliphuis, writer Lucky Fonz III, singer Pitou and collective s t a r g a z e dig through layers of civilization and intellectualism, searching for our hidden playfulness and fantasy.
High Dive is a collaboration of creative forces Pitou and s t a r g a z e with composer Morris Kliphuis and the eclectic singer-songwriter Lucky Fonz III. A colourful and psychedelic interplay between voice, ensemble and eyes that consider everything they see as new and exciting.