RUISKAMER #5: Alvin Curran / Two Envelopes

Tijdens deze laatste RUISKAMER van het seizoen - mee gecureerd door het altijd fijne Kraak - nodigen we volstrekt unieke componist Alvin Curran en het klavecimbel-percussie duo Two Envelopes. Afsluiten in stijl noemen ze dat.

Alvin Curran

Alvin Curran is an American composer, performer, improviser, sound artist and writer who lives and works in Rome. Curran describes himself as “democratic, irreverent and traditionally experimental”. In the 60s he founded the influential group Musica Elettronica Viva together with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum. The band experimented with synthesisers to distort different sounds. Curran is a past student of the renowned composer Elliott Carter.

Curran’s electronic music is a volatile mix of structure and chaos. In his over two-hundred compositions Curran has worked with samples recorded from nature, piano, synthesisers, computers, violin, percussion, shofar, foghorns and lots more. His non-commercial work is part of an ongoing search for futuristic forms of politics and spirituality.

Two Envelopes

Two Envelopes is the duo of harpsichordist Lisa Kokwenda Schweiger and percussionist Jacob Vanneste. Finding pieces to play together proved less than straightforward. The solution? Give seven composers free rein to write new work especially for them. The result is an intimate but adventurous set that wonderfully reconciles harpsichord and percussion. 

A number of these compositions have since been released on the album ‘Two Envelopes on a long voyage’. With titles such as ‘Lynched Franky’ and ‘Merlin Goes Wild’, this promises to be anything but a stuffy exercise.