electrocd

Radio Broken Dreams — Hans Tutschku

Adventures Through Audio, July 5, 2015

Hans Tutschku began to study music at an early age. In 1982 he joined the Ensemble für Intuitive Musik Weimar, playing synthesizer and live electronics. He studied electroacoustic composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Dresden (Germany), and accompanied Karlheinz Stockhausen on several concert tours in 1989-91 for the purpose of studying sound diffusion. In 1989 he co-founded with Michael von Hintzenstern the Klang Projekte Weimar, a presenter of contemporary music, which presents an annual festival as well as a concert series. In 1991-92 he took part in the international year-long course at the Institute of Sonology (The Hague, The Netherlands). In 1994 he followed the annual composition and computer music course at Ircam (Paris, France). In 1995-96, he taught electroacoustic composition at the Franz Liszt Academy in Weimar (Germany) where he also set up the studio. In 1996, he attended the Royaumont Composition Workshop with Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber (France). He taught at Ircam (Paris, France) from 1997 to 2001, and at the Conservatoire de Montbéliard (France) from 2001 to 2004. In May 2003 he completed a PhD in composition at the University of Birmingham (England, UK) with Jonty Harrison. Since September 2004 he has been working as professor of composition and director of the electroacoustic studios at Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, USA). With the Ensemble für Intuitive Musik Weimar he has realized several multimedia productions with projected images, choreography as well as the music that were presented in numerous concerts in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

A universe of sound is surrounding us ‘from within.’ It’s composed of our dreams, fears and longings. It only exists within our body, our own imagination. We want to share it; but there are no words, no possible descriptions. We are sitting on a meadow on a warm night, alone, watching the stars. Nobody is disturbing our thoughts. Nobody is limiting our space. We don’t have to rush anywhere; we have time to let go and to follow these sounding creatures… It’s not a nightmare; it’s just the interplay of our imagination.

Firmament — schlaflos [Firmament — sleepless] was realized in 2010 at Harvard University Studio for Electroacoustic Composition (HUSEAC) (Cambridge, MA, USA) and premiered on July 29, 2010 during the festival Inventionen in St Elisabeth-Kirche in Berlin (Germany). Thanks to Sarah Sun (recorded voice). The current stereo version was realized in January 2015 at the composer’s studio.