Partch Returns To REDCAT 6/2-3

Outfitted with an amazing array of custom-built microtonal instruments, Partch, continues its ongoing survey of the profound music of Harry Partch with two evenings of microtonal music and experimental film. Under the direction of John Schneider, the ensemble returns for a sixth year to REDCAT with Even Wild Horses presented on Wednesday, June 2 and again on Thursday, June 3, 2010 at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater. Curtain for the performances is 8:30pm.

The evening centers on two pieces by Partch and his friend and fellow maverick Lou Harrison that celebrate indigenous American cultures: Partch's Cloud Chamber Music, performed by the full ensemble, is a setting of a Zuni chant; Harrison's Canticle #3, for ocarina, guitar and a battery of percussion instruments, explores the music of Pre-Columbian Mexico. Also on the bill is the West Coast debut of Anne LeBaron's Southern Ephemera, which joins flute and cello with Partch instruments, and Madeline Tourtelot's Rotate the Body in All Its Planes, a short film documenting a Partch "ballet for gymnasts." The program concludes dramatically with Partch's Even Wild Horses - Dance Music for an Absent Drama, featuring African and Latin American polyrhythms, tenor saxophone, and excerpts from Rimbaud's "A Season in Hell" sung in English.

Harry Partch was notorious for injecting vernacular speech into such Americana works such as Barstow, US Highball and Bitter Music. He protestEd Loudly and often that music and it's instruments should follow speech, and not the other way around. But he was also inspired by vernacular music, such as the ancient chant of the Isleta tribe from his native New Mexico which he transcribed here in Los Angeles in 1933 at the Southwest Museum. Partch's transformation of music for marching band (Rotate The Body) or the rhythms of Latin American and Afro-American dance music from the nightclubs of the 1950's predate such now familiar post-Modern techniques by decades.

All of the music at this two evening event is inspired by vernacular music of one type or another--from Lou Harrison's imagined pre-Columbian ocarina melodies to Anne LeBaron's quotes of folk songs from America's rural South. " The intrepid coal-mine canary Partch remains inspirational, not least for the lonesome road he trekked in quest of his dreams, but perhaps most for the way he ultimately justified his vision," sites the Los Angeles Times.

Even Wild Horses Program

Harry Partch: Cloud Chamber Music (1950)
Lou Harrison: Canticle #3 (1942)
Madeline Tourtelot: Rotate The Body in All It's Planes-Ballad for Gymnasts (1961)

--Intermission--

Anne LeBaron: Southern Ephemera (1993)
Harry Partch: Even Wild Horses (1952)

Partch: Even Wild Horses is presented at REDCAT on Wednesday, June 2 and Thursday, June 3, 2010. Both performances will begin at 8:30 pm. Tickets are $25 ($20 for students with current I.D.) and are available at www.redcat.org or by calling 213.237.2800. REDCAT is located at the corner of W. 2nd and Hope Streets, inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex (631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012).

LINKS
Event's web page | www.redcat.org/event/partch-0

BIOGRAPHY
Harry Partch (1901-1974) was one of the most individualistic composers of all time as well as an innovative theorist who broke through the shackles of many centuries of one tuning system for all of Western music. Between 1930 and 1972, Partch created a uniquely radical and innovative body of work. In order to meet the needs of his compositions, he became an inventor, custom building dozens of incredible instruments, as well as a musical dramatist writing his own texts and dance/theatre extravaganzas based on everything from Greek mythology to his own experiences as a hobo. As a child living in isolated areas of the American southwest with parents who were former missionaries to China, Partch was exposed to a variety of influences from Asian to Native American. So when he dropped out of the University of Southern California, he began studying on his own, questioning both the tuning and the philosophical foundations of Western music.

In 1930, Partch broke with European tradition and forged a new music based on a more primal, corporeal integration of the elements of speech with music, using principles of natural acoustic resonance (just intonation) and expanded melodic and harmonic possibilities. He began to first adapt guitars and violas to play his music, and then began to build new instruments in a new microtonal tuning system. He built over 25 instruments, plus numerous small hand instruments, and became a brilliant spokesman for his ideas. Largely ignored by the musical establishment during his lifetime, he criticized concert traditions, the roles of the performer and composer, the role of music in society, the 12-tone equal-temperament scale, and the concept of "pure" or abstract music. To explain his philosophical and intonational ideas, he wrote a treatise, Genesis of a Music, which has served as a primary source of information and inspiration to many musicians.

ABOUT PARTCH
Partch is a unique ensemble that specializes in the music and instruments of the iconoclastic American maverick composer Harry Partch. Since their formation as Just Strings in 1991 to perform the music of Lou Harrison and Harry Partch, the group has gone on to commission and premiere works by Larry Polansky, Mamoru Fujieda, John Luther Adams, Mari Takano, Sasha Bogdonawitsch and others. In 1995 they toured Japan under the auspices of the American Embassy's prestigious Interlink Festival, giving three weeks of concerts and lectures on new music. In 2005, with the completion of their twelfth Partch instrument, the group began performing under the name Partch. They have performed for Chamber Music in Historic Sites, the LA County Museum of Art, UCLA's Partch Centennial Celebration, Sacramento's Festival of New American Music, Minnesota Public Radio's American Mavericks, Mills College, and the Getty Center. In 2004, they made their REDCAT debut premiering Harry Partch's Bitter Music, and have returned every year since.

ABOUT REDCAT
Opened by CalArts in 2003, REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) introduces diverse audiences, students and artists to the most influential developments in the arts from around the world, and gives artists in this region the creative support they need to achieve national and international stature. REDCAT is the newest partner in an international network of adventurous art and performance centers, which together are playing a vital role in the evolution of contemporary culture. REDCAT is a center for experimentation, discovery and lively civic discourse. For more information, visit www.redcat.org.

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