Splendor Amsterdam Concert 12/08/24

Well…I thought I might keep up with creating blog entries more regularly. BUT…alas…as I immersed myself in composing and enjoying life in Amsterdam this past fall I never took the time. No “Concerts in Amsterdam Part Two” :) or any other such blog entry. So I think I’ll catch up by reflecting back on some of my experiences this past fall, if for no other reason than to document my activities somewhere that’s a bit more permanent than social media. Thanks to Anne La Berge, a friend for many years and musician I admire (you can see an interview I did with her for the SEAMUS Newsletter HERE), I was able to present a concert at Splendor Amsterdam on December 8, 2024, that was a sort of culmination of my time in Amsterdam.

Me, arriving at Splendor early on Dec. 8, 2024…a typical dark and rainy morning…

I arrived early that day to help Anne with setup, and we were joined by Aidan Bay, a friend and former student, who is studying in Amsterdam and who I hired to run sound for the concert.

Aidan and Anne, sound gurus, setting up…

The program I ultimately settled on for the concert was as follows:

Lecture no. 4: Confronting Identity Through the Work of The Composer (2024) 20'           
for contrabass flute, video projection, and stereo audio  
Ned McGowan, lecture and contrabass flute

Steven L. Ricks, composer

FRANKENSTEINWAY (41 mins total)

Laurent Durupt - Same Notes Spread Differently #1 (2024) 5'
Daniel Moreira - Rythmic Study 3 Ludvan ven Beethowig (2009) 5'                      
Laurent Durupt - Bach mirrored sounds like Radiohead (2024) 3'                         
Bernhard Lang - Monadologie XXXVI, study 3 (2017-20) 7'                                  
Laurent Durupt - Moonlight mirrored sounds like Sunshine (2024) 7'                      
Isaac Schankler - The Moonlight Sonata but the bass is a bar late and the melody is a bar early (2018)  7'                       
Laurent Durupt - Same Notes Spread Differently #2 (2022) 7'                                  

Laurent Durupt, piano

- Intermission -

Steven L. Ricks – Medusa in Fragments (2011) 20’                                                   

for amplified piano, electronic music, and video projection
Laurent Durupt, piano

Laurent Durupt sound check at Splendor, with Aidan pacing the room to check out the sound…

Splendor is such a cool venue/community/concept (explore their website if you’d like to learn more) and I think it was the perfect venue for this concert. I was really grateful to be able to live in Amsterdam for four months so I could meet with Ned McGowan regularly and develop this new piece with him, and then connecting again with Laurent Durupt and inviting him to present some of his music as well as play my piece Medusa… was an additional treat. Fun times with great people!

The lecture/performance I created for Ned was patterned after my previous lectures on “The Composer,” the first of which you can see HERE. Ned’s piece is a bit different, in that for my previous lectures I’m talking about myself (The Composer) in the third person, and there’s sort of a built-in ridiculousness about me presenting and analyzing musical examples that I actually created as if they’re the work of someone else. With Ned’s piece, “The Composer” is in fact someone different, so the need to keep his identity mysterious is perhaps not necessary…something we’ll think about for future performances, but for this premiere we were purposely ambiguous about that. So far I’ve posted four audio clips from Ned’s performance on SoundCloud…I’ll provide links below.

Ned giving “Lecture no. 4: Meikyū” at Splendor Amsterdam

I think Ned did a great job, and it’s a fun, interesting format for a performance, in my opinion. I’m sure we’ll tweak and fine-tune the piece before its performed again…many questions to consider, like: Was the talking-to-playing ratio satisfying? Was the lecture too serious, or not serious enough? Could the lecture accommodate more strange, surreal elements, perhaps one that even hijacks the performance, or should it lean into being a more traditional, academic lecture? We’ll see what sort of “piece” the next lecture is.

Of course some post-concert food at a “rijsttafel” restaurant was required… :). What a fall! What a great experience to put on this concert!

Laurent Durupt and David Dramm, with some post-concert/post-dinner analysis…