The Decoder Ensemble is one of the most innovative and intrepid formations on the international contemporary music scene. Its highly energetic sound meets with acclaim in leading concert halls as much as in »in« clubs like the Berghain in Berlin. To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the ensemble gives the first full-length performance of Leopold Hurt’s »Dissociated Press«. Specially composed for Decoder, this multimedia cycle looks into what art means in our digital age. An exciting performance about algorithms and endless data flows, about fakes and originals.
Trailer :Composer Leopold Hurt about »Dissociated Press«
Performers
Decoder Ensemble
Carola Schaal clarinet
Sonja Lena Schmid violoncello
Leopold Hurt electric zither
Andrej Koroliov piano
Jonathan Shapiro drums
Alexander Schubert sound design
Heinrich Horwitz narrator
Programme
Leopold Hurt (*1979)
Dissociated Press (world premiere)
Commissioned by Decoder Ensemble and Edition Julian Klein; supported by the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung
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Musical sequence
Dissociated Press – Input 3
for drums and audio playbackDissociated Press – Input 1
for clarinet and audio playbackDissociated Press – Input 2
for violoncello and audio playbackDissociated Press – Insert 1
for ensembleDissociated Press – Input 5
for electric zitherDissociated Press – Insert 3
for ensembleDissociated Press – Output 2
for clarinet, violoncello and audio playbackDissociated Press – Output 1
for speaking voice and drumsDissociated Press – Substitute 1
for electric zither and electronicsDissociated Press – Insert 2
for ensemble and audio playbackDissociated Press – Input 4
for piano and audio playbackDissociated Press – Final
for speaking voice, ensemble and audio playback
The Artists
Founded in Hamburg in 2011, the Decoder Ensemble is one of the most courageous collectives on the international scene for contemporary music. Using both electronic and acoustic instruments, it is involved in cross-genre cooperations as well as in experimental instrumental music, multimedia set-ups and musical concept art.
Working together with younger-generation composers is their main focus. All the musicians in the ensemble are well-known specialists in the field of contemporary music. Thus the production of works goes hand-in-hand with their interpretation: new pieces of music are created through an intense exchange between all those involved. The aim is to achieve the utmost authenticity.
Vorgestellt: das Decoder Ensemble
The Music :Leopold Hurt talks about his cycle »Dissociated Press«
»Dissociated Press« is a concert-length set of compositions that began in 2017 as a »work in progress«. The scoring changes from one piece to the next, from a solo with electronics to the septet tailor-made for the Decoder Ensemble.
As a pun on the name of the world’s biggest news agency, Associated Press, »Dissociated Press« stands for an algorithm for the automatic generation of dummy text based on familiar language patterns. Absurdly artificial, the sentences are only vaguely reminiscent of a meaningful text. Taking this as its starting point, the cycle approaches the »remix« principle in different ways on both the linguistic and the musical level. Existing, in some cases strongly contrasting, material appears in one new combination after another. The outcome is a varied game played between original, copy, mash-up and fake, which causes a gradual shift in the listener’s perception.
