A Short text about the composition YAGO (by Gene Coleman):

YAGO (insects and architecture #1) (2003)

For my piece YAGO I am working with 3 Gagaku wind instruments, saxophone quartet, video and live electronics. The video was created by me in collaboration with the Chicago artist Tom Denlinger. The title is a reference to the late Spanish architect Yago Conde (1957--1994), whose book "Architecture of the Indeterminacy" has been a great inspiration for me. Mr. Conde made some very interesting projects around the relationship of new music (particularly the music of John Cage) and architecture. I also thought the name YAGO sounds Japanese and after some research I found out that "yago" means "the larva of a dragonfly". It was this fact that led me to think about connections between insects and architecture, which are two major influences on the music. They are also important subjects in the video. I have started to think about instruments and insects as "micro architecture" --- this is a poetic idea, which is explored in YAGO and in other new works of mine. The video contains the same structures as the music, as they were both developed by the same compositional plan.

YAGO shows how one can build relationships between different kinds of sound -- what starts as a landscape of noises (all notated in very specific ways) slowly introduces more and more "normal" pitch sounds. In these sections are found a myriad of rich noises and sounds, produced by the saxophones, gagaku instruments and the electronics. The noises move from one to another according to patterns drawn from architectural and natural forms. This leads to the "pure" frequency based sounds that make up the central section. From this point the process reverses itself, as pitches give way again to types of noise, ending again in longer and longer passages of beautiful "non musical" sound. This structure is one of continual transformation of the material (the overall form transcribes the changes that might take place from dawn to dusk), moving from one state of "identity" to another.

Cultural identity is an unavoidable theme when one mixes instruments from such different cultures. The instrument as a historical projection of a musical culture is of great interest to me, and this idea plays an important role in YAGO. The Gagaku instruments are basically unchanged in their design, structure and material for over a thousand years, while the saxophone reflects the evolution of western 19th century machines. The live electronics then are 21st century musical instruments beyond both of these. In YAGO I am working to explore these different kinds of instruments by at times blurring their differences and then at other times showing wide distinctions between them. Blurring the distinctions of the instruments makes them seem close together, and is created by the generation of noises on all 3 types. Many of these noises are modeled on the sounds of insects. This makes a soundfield in which cultural identity has nearly disappeared. Strong differences create distance between the instruments and are created by having them played in their most "traditional" ways, or by emphasizing certain kinds of sounds that are idiomatic to the music for which the instruments were (originally) created. This coming together and separating of the instruments sound and identity is another spatial metaphor, thus coming back to the influence of architecture once again.

Music can not survive in a vacuum -- it has to live, it has to breathe in the air we breathe now. In my recent works I try to develop a process by which noise is brought into close relationships with so called "music" -- a process which hopes to create a meditation on the value of sound and the many meanings that it carries with it's perception.

--- Gene Coleman ---

(Berlin, January 2003 and Philadelphia, August 2004)

October 26th, 8:00 PM

The Renaissance Society presents:

US premiere of:
"YAGO (insects and architecture #1)"
by Gene Coleman

performed by:
Ensemble N_JP and XASAX Quartet
directed by Rei Hotoda

This composition includes saxophone quartet, gagaku ensemble,
live electronics and video. The video was created in collaboration
by Chicago artist Tom Denlinger and Gene Coleman. The concert
will also feature music by Iannis Xenakis and traditional Gagaku
music.

Ensemble N_JP (Japan/USA):

Ko ISHIKAWA (sho = bamboo mouth organ)
Aya MOTOHASHI (hichiriki = bamboo oboe)
Takeshi SASAMOTO (ryuteki = bamboo flute)
Kazuhisa UCHIHASHI (guitar and daxophone)
Toshimaru NAKAMURA (no input mixing board = live electronics)
Gene COLEMAN (sound projection)
Tom DENLINGER (video projection and lighting)
Rei HOTODA (conductor)

XASAX Quartet (France/Switzerland)

Marcus WEISS (soprano sax)
Pierre-Stephane MEUGE (alto sax)
Jean-Michel GOURY (tenor sax)
Serge BERTOCCHI (baritone sax)

This project is part of the Sound Field 2004 festival and is made possible by the following sponsors:

The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago
The Shin Higuchi Institute
Soundfield, NFP
The French Cultural Services, Chicago Office
The New Chicago Japanese American Association
The John David Mooney Foundation Gallery
The llinois Arts Council (a state agency)
Mrs. Akiko Sugano
The American Music Center
Lake Forest College

Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago
(Please call the Renaissance Society for info)
(free concert)