100 cymbals and ten percussionists are activated and form a vibrating sea of brass in this unique concert experience.
The cymbals of a regular drum kit hold a great experimental potential. One can drill holes, add chains, play only on the bell, the bow or the edge, saw cuts to change the timbre, resonance and sound of the touch. You can play with brushes, brooms, drumsticks, mallets or even a violin bow to vary the sound.
The instruments are meticulously placed across the stage in straight lines and form a giant square of shiny metal. The possibilities are endless as 100 cymbals and 10 percussionists are activated and form a vibrating sea of brass, in this unique concert experience.
Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda created the soundtrack 100 Cymbals on commission by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and the work premiered in the venerable Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2019. Since then, it has garnered rave reviews. This is the first time Ikeda is presented in Norway.
Sound is central to Ikeda’s practice. He learned its fundamentals early on while working as an audiovisual producer in Japan and later as part of the artist collective Dumb Type. The influence of Tokyo’s thudding nightclubs is still discernible in Ikeda’s sensorially immersive work, from his exhibitions, set designs and concert performances to his collaboration with photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto for Paris Opera.
Ikeda was the mastermind behind some of the most intense and minimalist digital music of the 1990s. Works such as +/-, 0 degrees and dataplex explored sine tones and the extremes of human hearing. 100 Cymbals is a work adapted to acoustic percussion.
Ten silhouettes dressed in black circulate in the middle of a copper mushroom field. Without superfluous gesture, without any muscle in their faces altering their neutrality, they make 100 cymbals resonate at waist height […]. 100 Cymbals, a piece by Ryoji Ikeda, a contemporary music guru with rare public appearances, is just enough to express what a cymbal can. The audience imagines a chaotic hubbub of hammering crashes, with arrhythmic drummers pounding the metal like a nail. Not at all. It’s all about sweetness: a light drone with changing harmonics caresses their eardrums like a cottony violin or synth layer. There is even vocality in the call of the brass, almost a song. The cymbal, this instrument of delicacy.
Ryoji Ikeda (1966) lives and works in Paris and Kyoto. He is the creator of both sound compositions and visual art installations where physics, mathematics and sound is combined to create immersive art experiences.
22. september, 19.45, Store Scene
Aftertalk about 100 Cymbals in cooperation with Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival
NB! The bar will be closed between the performances due to Covid-19 restrictions.
In collaboration with Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival .
