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World Premiere of Marta Ptaszyńska's Voice of the Winds at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Mar. 30, 2017

World Premiere of Marta Ptaszyńska's <em>Voice of the Winds</em> at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

On April 23, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago presents the world premiere of Voice of the Winds, a new work for 100 percussionists by Polish composer and percussionist Marta Ptaszyńska. The performance takes place as part of “Whisper(s)”, an immersive concert in the spirit of Merce Cunningham and John Cage, featuring Eighth Blackbird percussionist Matthew Duvall.

For Voice of the Winds, Duvall is joined by Third Coast Percussion and 95 additional percussionists employing many traditionally "loud" instruments and objects to produce exclusively delicate and ethereal sounds. Ptaszyńska characterizes the work as “a sonorous musical sculpture,” for which she took significant influence from Cage, Morton Feldman and visual artists Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Jackson Pollock. Ptaszyńska remarks that:

Voice of the Winds reflects the Cagean philosophy of treating “noise” as an object of art, as well as embracing Cage’s fascination with silence. The percussionists perform in the most delicate and soft way, making the music as light as a feather.

The premiere performance is choreographed throughout the various levels of the MCA building, creating an immersive musical sculpture. The concert is co-presented by Contempo and the University of Chicago, in conjunction with the MCA’s retrospective exhibit “Merce Cunningham: Common Time”.

Listen to a recording of Ptaszyńska's Moon Flowers for cello and piano, commissioned by the BBC in 1986 for Roman Jabłoński and Krystyna Borucińska:

For more information on Marta Ptaszyńska, visit pwm.com.pl.

Marta Ptaszyńska
Voice of the Winds (2016)
for large percussion orchestra

(photo © Mariusz Makowski; courtesy of PWM) 

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