Nearing the end of his life and almost completely deaf, Beethoven becomes unmoored from reality and travels to the future and back. Witnessing our world’s horrors and beauty inspires him to compose his final work “Die Grösse Fuge” (The Great Fugue)
US Premiere – In English
(Premiere: BTHVN 2020, Bonn Germany)
Elliott Sharp composer, electronics
Nicholas Isherwood bass/baritone
Janene Higgins projection design
DGF String Quartet
Disturbed and unwell, raging at a world in which he is not in control, Beethoven still finds joy and sublime beauty. Retreating into “fugue” states, he has visions, both celestial and horrific: gleaming ships in the air, impossible symphonies, carnage beyond belief.
He emerges transformed with a new work of music that stretches the rules to the verge of destruction.
In writing the libretto, Sharp drew inspiration from Beethoven’s letters and notes as well as from works by Schiller and Goethe.
“Sharp is one of the most exciting composers of our time who touches on the deepest layers of our existence.” -Thorsten Preuss, BR Klassik
“Nobody can be adequately prepared for the aftermath of Sharp’s transformative and regenerative cut-up methodology, applied to both words (extrapolated from letters by Beethoven himself, plus texts by Goethe and Schiller) and music.” -Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing. Watch below or on YouTube.
Elliott Sharp is a composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, visual artist, and author who leads the projects Orchestra Carbon, SysOrk, Tectonics and Terraplane. His compositional strategies have encompassed the use of fractal geometry, chaos theory, algorithms, genetic metaphors, and new techniques for graphic notation to yield work that catalyzes a synesthetic approach to musicmaking as well as functioning as retinal art. In 2015, Sharp was awarded both the Berlin Prize and the Jahrespreis from der Deutscher Schallplatten Kritiks. In 2014 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Fellowship from the Center for Transformative Media. He has been featured in the Darmstadt and Huddersfield festivals, New Music Stockholm, Au Printemps-Paris, Hessischer Rundfunk Klangbiennale, and the Venice Biennale. His book IrRational Music, a mix of memoir, cultural discussion, and music theory was published in 2019. He is the subject of the documentary Doing The Don’t and has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. Sharp’s composition Storm of the Eye, composed for violinist Hilary Hahn, appeared on her Grammy-winning album In 27 Pieces. His opera Die Grösste Fuge premiered in Bonn as part of Beethoven@250 and his opera Filiseti Mekidesi premiered at the RuhrTriennale in 2018. His Walter Benjamin opera Port Bou premiered in NYC in 2014 at Issue Project Room and in Europe at Berlin Konzerthaus in 2015. Sound installations include Foliage, Fluvial, Chromatine, and Tag. Sharp’s collaborators have included Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; pianist Cecil Taylor; Ensemble Modern; pop singer Debbie Harry; blues legends Hubert Sumlin and Pops Staples; Arditti, JACK, and Kronos quartets; jazz greats Jack Dejohnette and Sonny Sharrock; media artists Christian Marclay and Pierre Huyghe; Radio-Sinfonie Frankfurt; and Bachir Attar, leader of the Master Musicians Of Jajouka.
https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/elliott-sharp-discography-list
