Feature | MUSIC
SEISMIC SHIFTS Where experimental and classical worlds collide, the Tectonics festival is found. Neil Cooper explains more, before Thurston Moore, Bill Wells and Sarah Kenchington perform this May
As its name suggests, the Tectonics festival taps into the earth- shuddering changes that have occurred across the entire spectrum of experimental music over the last decade. Running over a long May weekend in Glasgow, this second edition of Tectonics pulls together some of the world’s leading experimental composers alongside a younger generation of musical free-thinkers from a world where rock, art and classical music collide.
The festival was instigated by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s principal guest conductor Ilan Volkov, who is also music director and chief conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. He partnered up with AC Projects’ Alasdair Campbell, the man behind the Counterl ows and Le Weekend festivals. ‘There are so many strands of music now, and I think it’s great to have people from different backgrounds working like this,’ Volkov says from Reykjavík, where the Icelandic arm of Tectonics has just opened. ‘We’ve been doing this sort of thing in Glasgow on and off for ten years now, and it’s great to be able to call up a composer who’s maybe not used to working with an orchestra, and then to present the work in an interesting way. Audiences don’t want just one thing, and with Tectonics they can have a whole range of ideas coming at them.’
So while iconoclasts such as composer Christian Wolff will perform some of their most thrilling works, a series of BBC commissions will feature new pieces from the likes of plunderphonist John Oswald and American composer David Behrman. Former Sonic Youth guitarist and long-time musical explorer Thurston Moore, who recently performed in London with Yoko Ono, will appear at Tectonics twice. The i rst performance will i nd Moore play a late show with Dylan Nyoukis, one half of noise duo Blood Stereo and founder of the Chocolate Monk imprint as well as the Brighton-based Colour Out of Space festival. For his second appearance, Moore will hook up with Japanese maestro Takehisa Kosugi, one of the key i gures of the Fluxus movement, whose treated violin- based works saw him collaborate with the late choreographer Merce Cunningham.
While a two-way trafi c between Iceland and Scotland is spearheaded by a performance from Reykjavík-based composers’ collective S.L.Á.T.U.R., there is much input too from internationally renowned Scottish artists. Tectonics’ opening concert will feature maverick pianist and composer Bill Wells and his National Jazz Trio of Scotland collaborator, viola player Aby Vulliamy, working with the BBC SSO to present a new arrangement of his AC Projects commission, Summer Dreams. Alongside appearances by female collective Muscles of Joy, absurdist duo Usurper and veteran ‘ambi-dustrial’ outi t Cindytalk, as well as a new musical installation by Sarah Kenchington, the festival’s i nale will feature the world premiere of Past Fragments of Distant Confrontation, the i rst ever orchestral work by composer, singer and performer Richard Youngs. ‘I’ve known Richard’s music for a long time now,’ says Volkov, ‘and I wanted to give him a chance to do something new. Scotland is really special just now, and it’s easier to put this kind of thing on in Glasgow than it is in London. Suddenly there are fewer and fewer barriers, and this is happening all over.’
Tectonics takes place in the City Halls, Old Fruitmarket and St Andrew’s in the Square, Glasgow, Fri 9–Sun 11 May. See tectonicsfestival.com for info. Musical explorer and Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore plays two Tectonics gigs
17 Apr–15 May 2014 THE LIST 69