XV Nau Côclea Festival of New Music
Music 13 Songs of the Cosmos
This open-air, summer festival features the sounds of electroacoustic and experimental music in the forest, under the stars of the night sky. Routes, talks, concerts and audiovisuals bring music to the night in the heart of nature and take us closer us to the mystery of the Cosmos. The public neither sits nor remains impassive at these events but takes part, walks about, observes and plays.
For the second year running, the theme of Festival Música13 are the bonds that have linked music to astronomy over time and still do so today. Astronomic music and musical astronomy will once again be the main theme at this annual meeting, which this year is being held for the fifteenth time. As the festival falls on the night of the new moon this year, the sky conditions should be apt for observing distant stars and the deep sky: stars and comets, musical journeys, courses recorded on GPS, telescopes, the harmony of the spheres, orbital music, and the deep sky, etc.
The earth, the solar system, our galaxy and the whole universe have often been imagined as a great universal song. Music has also frequently been inspired by the mysteries of the Cosmos. Pythagoras established the idea of a universe ordered by musical harmony, and thereafter variations on this idea passed from mind to mind throughout the history of mathematics, philosophy and astronomy to the present day. The theme of this Música 13 festival is therefore the Songs of the Cosmos.
Director: Josep Manuel Berenguer
Saturday 4 August
8.00 p.m. > “Passacaglia” Bandaèria travelling concert
A concert through the forests of Lluena (Camallera)
Director : Xavier Maristany
With: Adrià Grandia: flageolet, Adrià Bauzó: flute, saxophones, Xavi de la Salud: trumpet, percussion. Xavi Banegas: trombone, Xavier Maristany: wind, Abel Queralt: poet, meteorologist and percussion.
The group’s musicians will take you on a walk through the forests of Lluena, play games with you and encourage you to participate. This is a trip full of surprises, wind instruments, natural sounds, and musicians who appear and disappear. Bandaèria, a well-established wind ensemble, breaks down the barriers that separate it from the public, does away with script and the stage, and makes music participatory and increasingly different. The group has performed at venues as different as La Boqueria Market in Barcelona, the Ciutat Vella Flamenco Festival, the Teatro Valle Inclán in Madrid, the Carnaval des Deux Rives in Bordeaux, and La Panera in Lleida, etc.
10 p.m.> Inauguration “No Name and No Memory”.
Installation by Josep Manuel Berenguer
Audiovisual installation. Intelligence, change and thought. The fireflies of Kuala Selangor.
Wednesday 8 August
8.30 p.m. > Talk: “The mechanics of the sky 1″ by Toni Guntín, astronomer. Talk and observation of the sky.
This educational talk on the cosmos deals with the proportions of the universe, the solar system, the size of the stars, and galaxies seen from the inside, and prepares participants for subsequent observation by telescope. This is the season of the meteorite shower known as the “Tears of Saint Lawrence”, which can be seen even without using optical instruments.
9.30 p.m. > Talk with object “Pythagoras: Songs from the Cosmos” Clara Garí
Music, mathematics and the astronomic universe …everything Pythagoras thought about musical harmony, numbers and their relation with the world.
10.00 p.m.> Telescopic observation of the sky
Planets, stars, nebulas, galaxies and meteorites, seen with the naked eye and by telescope. With the collaboration of the astronomy associations of the counties of Girona.
(Bring a blanket or shawl so you don’t get cold and a sandwich so you don’t go hungry.)
Thursday 9 August
8.00 p.m.> concert “The Music Cre8tor and the Stars” Jane Rigler.
With Zachary Seldess.
Workshop/participatory concert for boys, girls, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandparents with flutes, electronic sensors and video projection. Jane Rigler offers a participatory concert featuring audience interaction with the “Music Cre8tor” (a sensor/software interface designed by Zachary Seldess and Jane Rigler) in combination with a 3D audio/visual environment designed by Zachary Seldess.
Jane Rigler combines flute with voice and several audiovisual electronic slides. Her performances are based on ancestral techniques and personal experiment. She has presented her work at several contemporary music festivals in the United States, Argentina, Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany. She specialises in concerts for children and is the cofounder of two contemporary music groups: MovableDo (in Madrid) and The Cubic Second (New York), which present new music at unique venues such as the MoMA in New York and the Centro Reina Sofia in Madrid.
Zachary Seldess is a composer, programmer, guitarist, and teacher living in New York. He currently works at Harvestworks
[Harvestworks Engineer]
[Art Games - an ongoing project @ CUNY NML]
[intermedia arts group]
Friday 10 August
8.30 p.m. > Talk. “The mechanics of the sky 2″ by Toni Guntín, astronomer. Talk and observation of the sky.
This talk deals with the cosmic year, space travel, and the movements of the sky. With the collaboration of the astronomy associations of the counties of Girona.
9.30 p.m. > Talk with objects “Copernicus: singing of the spheres” Clara Garí
Copernicus followed the footsteps of Pythagoras to devise a perfect system in which the planets reflected musical harmony.
10.00 p.m.> Telescopic observation of the sky. Observation of the meteorite shower known as the “Tears of Saint Lawrence”. With the collaboration of the astronomy associations of the counties of Girona.
(Bring a blanket or shawl so you don’t get cold and a sandwich so you don’t go hungry.)
Saturday 11 August
10 p.m.> concert. “Taking Soundings” Yolandeh Harris, electronic
“Taking Soundings” is a technique that determines the form and depth of the sea, in a similar way to that in which GPS gathers information from satellites. Yolande Harris uses the sounds generated by these signals to invite us on a drifting journey.
All the events will take place at Nau Côclea in Camallera and are free.