Le Weekend
26-28 May 2006
Stirling
Background and context
The programme
Further information
Le Weekend is back at the Tolbooth in Stirling for its ninth year. The festival is now felt by many aficionados to be at the forefront of the experimental music festival scene. Newly-appointed artistic director Alasdair Campbell has put together a programme in honour of Derek Bailey, one of music's pioneers of a non idiomatic approach to music making, who died on Christmas Day 2005. Of this year's festival, Campbell says 'Le Weekend 2006 welcomes some of Derek Bailey's previous collaborators. We bring together the crucial figures from the early years of European-free improvisation with a new generation of players who continue to push the boundaries.'
Friday 26 May
To continue one of the traditions of Le Weekend, Steve Noble and Peter Dowling open the festival with a free improv set on drums and sax in the Changing Room Gallery at 6.30 pm. They'll play together for the first time and set the scene for the weekend ahead.
SPKE are John Harris (laptop), Ruth Morley (flutes) and David Fennessy (guitars and effects). They have been working together at the Tolbooth since January on a piece devised specially for this year’s festival at 7.30 pm. They combine improvisation, laptop manipulation and assorted distortions and noises to create the very essence of what Le Weekend is about - a new music experience at its best.
Mark Wastell’s top-ranking, ground-breaking collective of improvisers perform at 8.30 pm. The quartet of Wastell (tam-tam), Thomas Korber (electronics), Tisha Mukarji (inside piano) and Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board) will bring out a sublime contrast of sound from the steely edge of the tam-tam to the electronic devices of Thomas Korber.
| The Art of Mirrors, at 9.30 pm brings together Scottish composer Max Richter’s new composition set to never-before-seen films from the Derek Jarman archive. Richter’s music, while classically based, often draws upon elements from other creative music traditions as well as literary sources. |
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He was commissioned to compose the piece as a accompaniment to selected films from Jarman’s archive of all the S8mm film made between 1970 and 1983, many of which were considered by Jarman himself to be some of his best works. Max Richter appears on piano and laptop with Louisa Fuller and Nathalie Bonner (violin), John Metcalfe (viola), Chris Worsey and Ian Burdge (cello).
Saturday 27 May
Des Enfants Terribles perform at Le Weekend 2006 as part of the Tolbooth’s commitment to developing opportunities for local musicians to engage with the creation of new music and to perform alongside international artists. Des Enfants Terribles and SPKE have spent the last eight weeks devising and rehearsing a new performance piece to be performed at 2.30 pm on Saturday 27 May. As in the Cocteau story of a similar name, it is amazing what forbidden things take place when people are locked away from the norms of society…
Steve Noble and Alex Ward’s For Derek Bailey (7.30 pm) sits at the centre of this year’s Le Weekend. Derek Bailey, one of contemporary music’s most recognisable and venerated guitarists, accompanied the 15-year-old Alex Ward on clarinet with Steve Noble on drums, bugles and things at the Third Eye Centre in an improvisation in 1989, and Ward later played in Bailey’s band Limescale. This performance is a tribute to Bailey, by two musicians whose progressions were bolstered by the great musical practitioner's faith in them.
Mattin makes his Scottish debut at 8.30 pm. Much of the Spanish computer-sound shaper’s exploration of sound is rooted in contrasts: high and low volumes, digital and physical computer sounds. A visual artist, art historian, filmmaker and astute theorist, his playing style often resembles the approach of the more radical electroacoustic improvisers.
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The Tobias Delius 4tet of some of Europe’s top free improv creative players (Delius on tenor sax and clarinet, Tristan Honsinger on cello, Joe Williamson on bass and Han Bennink on drums) present their take on free jazz at 9.30 pm. As Delius explains, ‘Although there are loads of tunes, laying them out actually happens on the spur of the moment.’ |
Sunday 28 May
Two film screenings take place at 1.00 pm on Sunday. The Magic Sun: by Phil Niblock, featuring Sun Ra & His Arkestra is a classic of experimental underground filmmaking. Two short films by Richard Fontaine follow. Ornette Coleman Trio captures these musicians recording the ‘Who’s Crazy’ soundtrack in Paris, and Sound?? looks at legendary exponents of new music, Roland Kirk and John Cage.
The Poets Still Throwing Up Their Hands is a visual exhibition of new work by three female artists, Danish Kalin Lindena, German Lotte Gertz and Scottish Jane Topping. Gertz’s prints combines abstract shapes with dislocated figures. Lindena draws on the freedom of graffiti to create her large gallery wall paintings, while Topping’s series of small works on paper combine single words and loose images to create multiple meanings and connections. The exhibition continues until 9 June and is supported by Glasgow City Council and the Geothe-Insitut Glasgow.
| The Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet close Le Weekend at 7.30 pm. The ensemble is a ‘gloriously expansive and exuberant improvising group’ comprising reeds, brass, strings and percussion and led by one of Europe’s great musicians. |
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| For ticket and booking information visit the Tolbooth website, call the Box Office on 01786 27 4000 or visit the Le Weekend website. |
Le Weekend is part of Scotland’s Experimental Music Partnership: Instal (The Arches, Glasgow), freeradiCCAls and Subcurrent (CCA, Glasgow) and Kill Your Timid Notion (DCA, Dundee).
Le Weekend is funded by Stirling Council and Scottish Arts Council National Lottery Fund. |