News, May 2014


Dear friends and fans, here’s the scoop on a new piece these days in Cologne, plus other events and media from some concerts in the past.

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Ned

Premiere of a new sound installation


A new sound installation I created for the Acht Brücken Festival opened yesterday in Cologne.  Called the ‘Beating Heart of the City’ all the sound comes from the Hohenzollern bridge leading into Cologne Central Station.  Of course, lots of beautiful trains but also local musicians and plenty of voices from the throngs of people going on to this bridge.  
Its the voices of real conversations which attracted me very much when making this piece because they communicate the stories and emotions of the people. To record them I walked around with a hidden recorder, pausing next to people talking to each other. No proper names, personal insults or terrorist plots were revealed but plenty of honest emotions, stories and comments from people with their families and friends.

If you are in or near Cologne, stop by any other time during the festival.  It is running constantly outside on the Roncalliplatz next to the Dom. The sound emanates out of a huge mouth created by set designer/robot artist Roland Olbeter.

You can hear a short clip of it here: LINK

Commissioned by the Acht Breuken Festival  LINK

Hallucination for (forte) piano


Here is the recording of the new piece Hallucination, written for The Voorwaarts Maart / En Avant Mars Festival last month and performed  by Keiko Shichijo on her beautiful Frere et Soeur Stein fortepiano.

I never had this idea while composing it, but someone said this piece would be a good music for funerals.  :-O

Hallucination

new videos with Calefax and Eric Vloeimans


Here are two new video's of Calefax and Eric Vloeimans playing two of my 'six pieces mécaniques'. These two movements consist only of instructions and staging diagrams.  The notes are all up to the players.

n' est-ce pas spatial?  (Isn't that spatial?)
le nerds vont régner le monde (The nerds will rule the world)


They will perform them again on the 3rd of May in Den Haag:

Nieuwe Kerk | Den Haag
starts at 8:15 pm
link: Dr. Anton Philipsaal

Conducting


The last few months I conducted some concerts which I enjoyed very much.  First was in the role as conductor/composer with a workshop for young string players by the Sinfonietta Amsterdam.  With gestures and plans instead of notes, we made some fun music together.

Here are some excerpts from the concert, including a screaming riot from the audience at the end.

Strijken Zonder Noten

Further, on invitation from the Basclarinet Festijn, I led some pieces on a tour of seven bass clarinettists and three contrabass clarinettists to celebrate the life's work of living legend Harry Sparnaay.  What an amazing sound!

Facebook page


So I'm jumping onto the Facebook bandwagon to post occasional events and  I made an artist page named 'Ned McGowan'.  Very original of course, and now I have to always specify when logging in whether I'm Ned McGowan or Ned McGowan. :-O

Anyway, please visit and hit the Like button!



Comments are welcome. Hope to hear from you.