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Reiteration of diversity: minimal music and American opera of the XNUMXth century

Reiteración de la diversidad: minimal music y ópera norteamericana del siglo XX

International Institute > Calendar > Reiteration of diversity: minimal music and American opera of the XNUMXth century

Reiteration of diversity: Minimal Music and American opera of the XNUMXth century, es un conference cycle en español of three sessions for all those who wish to learn more about the history of the most recent opera and specifically the Minimal Music XNUMXth century American This course precedes the April premiere of John Adams' opera nixons in china at the Royal Theatre.

Throughout the three sessions We will constantly use specific audiovisual examples that allow us to listen to and visualize the most characteristic features of this musical movement, as well as its specific crystallization in two emblematic operas by two of its most outstanding composers: Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass and Nixon in China by John Adams.

Minimal music can be considered the first genuinely American trend in classical music of the 1960th century, a musical reaction to the post-serial crisis existing in Europe at that time and to the irruption of the indefinable figure of John Cage: minimal music postulated a new avant-garde concept to through a drastic simplification of the internal structures of music and its references to the outside world. As a musical trend, it began to develop imperceptibly from the late sixties, in the context of Postmodernity, to later encompass a broad domain of musical composition and become one of the most significant currents of the postwar period; It evolved in parallel to Minimal Art in the plastic arts, a variant of abstract art that spread internationally, with a great presence from XNUMX on in the United States and Great Britain.

Minimal music works largely through sections of simple diatonic scales, used as rhythmic-melodic patterns, which cause a hypnotic and meditative effect through endless repetition and minimal variations. The reduction of the sound material and its permanent variation raises a questioning of the usual parameters of music and invites a less structured listening and with a different awareness of nuances.

Instructor: Gabriel Menéndez Torrellas, PhD

Gabriel Menéndez is a Doctor of Aesthetics and Philosophy. He holds the Magister Artium in Musicology and Art History from the Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany), in whose Faculty of Musicology he was a professor. Since 2013 he has directed the Opera and Musicology Seminar at the CEU San Pablo University in Madrid, where he is a professor of Opera History. Since 2008, he has been regularly teaching opera courses and other monographic courses at the Teatro Real in Madrid.

[More information]

Program:

Tuesday, March 21, 2023: 19pm-21pm
INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN MINIMAL MUSIC
An exhibition of the characteristic features of this movement from its beginnings through musical examples that allow us to define the new way of listening that its works inspire. In minimal music, European and non-European modes of musical creation and interpretation converge, a very different view of musical parameters and a game with the expectation that can take us back to John Cage as well as certain models of the African oral tradition.
Tuesday, March 28, 2023: 19pm-21pm
PHILIP GLASS AND ROBERT WILSON, EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH
This opera, premiered in Avignon in 1976, was the first large-scale composition within the “minimal” group of composers. Both Philip Glass's music and Robert Wilson's setting were a radical departure from traditional drama; the fabric of words and meanings was replaced by spaces and images, gestures and behaviors, dreams, visions and hallucinations, often in a movement that seemed to throb in time.
Tuesday, April 11, 2023: 19pm-21pm
JOHN ADAMS, NIXON IN CHINA
Premiering in Houston in 1987, Nixon in China was the first collaborative effort between stage director Peter Sellars, composer John Adams, and writer Alice Goodman. For their opera, they took a theme from recent American history, which for those attending the premiere represented an event witnessed with their own eyes. Nixon in China's music integrates the rhythm of the American language into song, conceives of music from various musical dimensions, and uses broad melodic arcs and rhythmic syncopations borrowed from entertainment music. It is characterized by a permanent rhythmic pulse of the orchestra, above which rise singable melodic lines reminiscent of Benjamin Britten and Richard Strauss.

Event Details

  • Date: March 21, 2023 - April 11, 2023
  • Capacity: limited places
2023-03-21 19:00:00 2023-04-11 21:00:00 Europe / Madrid Reiteration of diversity: minimal music and American opera of the XNUMXth century International American Institute - Miguel Ángel 8, Madrid info@iie.es
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