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Music

Music Becomes Chaotic Kinetic Sculpture In Quayola And Abstract Birds' Partitura-Ligeti [Video]

The abstract composer’s latest work was performed as part of Paris’ Nemo Festival.

Last month, we gave you a sneak peek of audiovisual composer Quayola‘s collaboration with Abstract Birds, Partitura Ligeti. Yesterday, Quayola released a recording of last month’s live performance at Paris’ Nemo Festival, including a visual segment for each of the six musical movements.

Violist Odile Auboin performed Ligeti’s sonata, and the projections reacted in real-time to each new strain of music, which were all rendered differently on screen.

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The first movement is shown as a simple, three-dimensional band that is twisted and agitated by new notes and resonances. One of the pieces, which features more chords, is represented as a cluster of thin, interwoven strings that expand and contract as if each new chord were a pulse running through a strand of veins.

In another movement, the visuals echo the dissonance of Ligeti’s modernist composition. As each irregular chord is struck, lines break off of the central band like momentary glitches.

The interpretations almost remind me of a live-action version of FIELD’s Energy Flow, concentrating on the kinetics of Ligeti’s works as opposed to their musical attributes like atonality or key. Watch the video above to see all of Quayola and Abstract Birds’ interpretations

Learn more about Quayola in our behind-the-scenes profile below.

Images courtesy of Quayola.

@CreatorsProject