The electronic-music composition Oktophonie by the late Karlheinz Stockhausen is being performed this week in New York City with a space themed production:
New York Premiere
By Karlheinz Stockhausen
Environment designed by Rirkrit Tiravanija
Karlheinz Stockhausen is one of the most significant composers of modern and electronic music, influencing artists from The Beatles to Bjork, Miles Davis to Animal Collective, Frank Zappa, and more. Performed by one of his original collaborators Kathinka Pasveer, the maverick composer’s OKTOPHONIE from his opus Licht gets an exciting new life in an epic production of this monumental composition.
Acclaimed contemporary visual artist Rirkrit Tiravanija stages the work as the composer originally intended—in outer space—creating a lunar floating seating unit to fully envelop the listener in octophonic sound. Adorned in white, the audience takes a ritualistic musical journey from plunging darkness into blinding light to fully immerse themselves in the all-encompassing score and surroundings. The vastness of the Wade Thompson Drill Hall is the perfect setting to fully realize this rarely performed work that Stockhausen so boldly envisioned in its highly-anticipated New York premiere.
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) is a nonprofit organization that promotes and manages research on board the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory. They just unveiled a new mission patch designed by the famous graphic artist Shepard Fairey.
The patch commemorates the first period of research on the ISS to be sponsored by CASIS:
Advancing Research Knowledge 1 (ARK1), originally known as Increment 37/38, is the first launch period sponsored by CASIS. ARK1 is scheduled to run from September 2013 through March 2014. Some planned payloads during this increment include award recipients from CASIS’ first Request for Proposals in protein crystallization, binary colloidal alloy tests with implications to product shelf life, and the education program, “Story Time From Space.” A number of mission patches will also be flown to the ISS to commemorate ARK1.
Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, and Nico Muhly have created an elaborate song cycle show titled Planetarium, which includes 10 songs on the theme of the Solar System. Here are some reviews of the America premier of the concert held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last week:
