CA Festival of New Music: Chamber Works by Laure Hiendl
Presented as part of the statewide California Festival: A Celebration of New Music, Project [BLANK]’s Composer Spotlight concert features recent chamber works by Laure Hiendl (b.1986, pronouns: they/he). Hiendl’s music is provocative, forward-thinking, and inherently political in the way that it considers the body in relation to music. Their eclectic influences pull from contemporary electronic dance music, taking digital sampling processes and recreating them with acoustic means. Central to the program is In Abeyance (2021), which takes the subtly shifting patterns produced by an electronic phasing sampler and produces them live with a lushly orchestrated chamber ensemble. Additionally, two works for voices and electronics will explore themes of gender, violence, and racial prejudice: 10 Bullets Through One Hole (2018), a challenging work that highlights the quasi-pornographic language used in firearm advertisements; and White Radiance TM (2020), a work for solo voice and instrumental ensemble that pulls its text from Jamaican philosopher and writer Sylvia Wynter’s meditation on Western standards of beauty – contrasting her powerful words with text taken from cosmetic advertisements.