Luis Codera Puzo: Compression music (part V)

von JukeBoxx NewMusic · Veröffentlicht 2. September 2020 · Aktualisiert 4. Juli 2024

Beschreibung / Description:

Compression music contrasts two different sound ideas. On the one hand, the current sound aesthetic is characterized by homogeneous dynamics and a compact and amplified sound. Due to the phenomenon of compression, most modern popular music presents minimal dynamic contrast between strong and weak parts. This idea is very strange compared to a classical musical tradition based on the opposite principle, in which for example you can find abysses of sound energy between an entire orchestra that plays in an overwhelming tutti and after a few seconds is followed by an intimate fragment with a single instrument. There are many other elements that derive from this conception of sound, such as differences in the approach to the sound space and instrumental color. A concert hall is not a CD or a recording studio, an acoustic instrument does not behave like an electric guitar and we have to be aware that when we listen to an amplified instrument we are also hearing the microphone and the speaker through which the recording is playing, at the least.

The instrumental work of the piece reflects this duality: piano, percussion and voice massively amplified, an interpreter of modular synthesizers, sampler and live electronics, and a sound engineer with a crucial role in the piece which appears thoroughly defined in the score. Compression music is part of this reflection as an awareness exercise. It is an attempt to confront how and why we listen and to propose, through different movements, situations that show these different and almost incompatible conceptions of sound. In Compression music, acoustics are not a characteristic or a secondary property of the concert: acoustics, the idea of sound, is the piece.

The text of the piece is a reconstruction of a multitude of fragments of lyrics of pop songs that I liked when I was younger.

Biografie / Biography:

Luis Codera Puzo is a composer, performer of electric guitar and modular synthesizers and curator.

He was initially self-taught, later studying various instruments in different genres and finally focusing on composition.

After a period in which he worked with the main European ensembles of new music (including Klangforum Wien, ensemble recherche, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, and many others) at numerous international festivals, his most recent career has focused on the creation of long pieces that make up entire programs. These projects are often initiated, produced and coordinated under his direction, allowing him to take care of all the aspects involved in his music.

Luis Codera Puzo has always been interested in the curation of new music and sees the act of listening as an essential component of his work. In 2009 he founded CrossingLines, acting as artistic director until 2017, by which point he had consolidated the group as the leading Catalan setting for the creation of new music. In 2016 he created OUT·SIDE, a series of unusual music concerts in art centres. After OUT.SIDE he created OUT·, an enterprise devoted to the management and curation of several cultural activities.

He has received the support of several institutions and foundations, including the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung Composition Prize, the Christoph und Stephan Kaske Stiftung and the Leonardo Scholarships of the BBVA Foundation awarded to creators and researchers. He also has received different grants and aid from the Catalan, Spanish, German and French ministries of culture.

www.coderapuzo.com | www.outs.cat