Johanitterbrücke
with Christopher Cerrone
FROM THE COMPOSER
In recent years, a sense of uncanny has come to permeate our lives: A too-warm January day; a once-in-century storm happening every few years; a flash downpour during the dry season. Beyond the tragic environmental harm being done, the world feels weird.
This year, I'm living in Basel, Switzerland, and ride my bike across the Rhine, daily. The weather has had a peculiar, whiplash-like feel, changing from fog to snow to a sunny day within 48 hours. This kind of odd weather is historically abnormal and its feel has permeated my time here; I feel and see it most acutely when I ride across the Johanitterbrücke and can see the strange weather on land and sea. This inspired my new work for Hub where I use electronic sounds — samples of Hub New Music processed through different sounds of rain, storm, and water — to have the audience join me on the uncanny journey.
In performance, Hub will trigger live electronics that will create new acoustic spaces for each movement that mirror erratic weather patterns. The work will ask questions like: What is the resonance of a fog? What is the sound of a flute amplified by a rainstorm? What are the acoustics of snow? These are the questions my work seeks to answer.
ABOUT
Christopher Cerrone’s Johanitterbrücke (Johanitter Bridge) recounts of a year the composer lived in Basel, Switzerland, where he crossed this bridge across the Rhine each day. On his trips he regularly experienced what locals described as the most uncanny and stark weather shifts in recent memory, no doubt stemming from climate change. This inspired Cerrone’s new work for Hub in which he uses electronic sounds — samples of Hub New Music processed through different sounds of rain, storm, and water — to have the audience join him on this uncanny meteorological journey.
SAMPLE PROGRAM
Angélica Negrón, Pedazos intermittentes de un lugar ya fragmentado Nico Muhly, Drown Julius Eastman, Joy Boy Christopher Cerrone, Johanitterbrücke
