Ictus, Contrechamps, Tarek Halaby & Nina Guo

Ictus' Liquid Rooms have been successful throughout Europe since 2009. At the interface between concert and installation, they invite the audience to circulate freely, discover music in diverse styles and experience unexpected ways of listening. In this new edition, the ensemble focuses on the eccentric oeuvre of Robert Ashley, an American composer who became known for multidisciplinary works in which the musicality of the spoken word is central. In the television opera Perfect Lives, for example, Ashley portrays iconic American places such as the supermarket or the bank, and the everyday (anti)heroes who populate them.

Together with the Swiss ensemble Contrechamps and two remarkable performers, Ictus will present fragments from this cult work, alongside a Laurie Anderson cover and music by the young avant-garde drummer and composer Jessie Cox.

Programme

Robert Ashley (1930-2014)

Excerpt from Perfect Lives : Act 3: The Bank (Victimless Crime)

Tap Dancing in the Sand 

Excerpt from Improvement : The Indifference Text 

Jessie Cox (1995)

New work, commissioned by Contrechamps & Ictus 

Laurie Anderson (1947)

O Superman 

Jennifer Walshe (1974) 

Excerpts from Tri Amhrán (Three Songs)

1. Robot 

3. Twelve Climate Songs 

Sarah Nemtsov (1980) 

Implicated Amplification 

Tom Johnson (1939)

Rational Melodies X & XV 

Bryn Harrison (1969)

Five Miniatures in three parts

image © Christophe Urbain