Boulez Tales of a Future Past Berio

Homerton College is proud to present a unique event centred on Pierre Boulez and Luciano Berio, two legendary composers whose innovative, seductive and challenging music has perhaps never been as relevant, indeed necessary, as it is today, on the 100th birthday of their birth.

Berio and Boulez were at the forefront of the experimental whirlwind that followed the second world war. Their motivations were not only musical but also social and political: in the aftermath of Nazism and on the eve of decolonization, the ideological supremacy of the West was irremediably undermined. Boulez and Berio were determined to create new music for a new era: music based on different logics, open to a multiplicity of experiences, generating new ways of attending to others and to the world. In the process, they went so far ahead of their time that we are only now catching up with them.

Tales of Future Past will combine music and scholarship, thus providing an ideal opportunity to discover these cutting-edge composers. The event will open with a lecture by Ivanka Stoïanova, musicologist and author of the award-winning book "Luciano Berio: Chemins en musique". It will continue with a recital by flutist Jean-Luc Menet and pianist Dimitri Vassilikis, both former associates of Boulez, performing pieces by Boulez and Berio as well as pieces by their former students and prominent composers Ricardo Nillni and Philippe Leroux. Finally, a roundtable chaired by Alison Wood from Changemakers will enable the audience to engage in discussion with Ivanka Stoïanova and the musicians.

Events timing:

5pm: Conference

6:15pm: Drinks (free)

6:45pm: Concert

Luciano Berio Cinque Variazioni for piano

Ricardo Nillni Sept figures de l’indicible for flute, piano

Luciano Berio Sequenza flute

Pierre Boulez Incises piano

Philippe Leroux PPP flute, piano

Attendance to one event only is welcome.

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Host or Publisher Homerton College