Luis Azcona
The existential and the machinic
solo concert
program
Juanjo Eslava - Skin's traces (2007), for Frame Drum and electronics.
Alberto Bernal - (Neo)Liberal Systems #4: Entertainment (2021) - for iPad and video.
This programme attempts to address a subject that, a priori, could be summarised as the metamorphosis from the classical musical instrument to the technological one; but not only the metamorphosis, the transformation, (acoustic-electronic / physical-digital / instrumental-post-instrumental) but also the different degrees of relationship and interaction that occur within this process.
Skin's traces, by Juanjo Eslava, introduces electronics as an expansion of gesture, thanks to a contact microphone on a tambourine that is caressed, rubbed and expanded through live electronics. The hands-on manipulation of the instrument, as well as the tambourine as a key choice for the piece, make it an intimate, human and still primitive situation.
The concert closes with (Neo)Liberal Systems #4: Entertainment. Alberto Bernal's conceptual and symbolic depth gives a twist to the instrumental-machinic reflection of the programme: a piece for iPad, video and electronics. The iPad, now a technological entertainment device, becomes in turn a musical instrument, a reflection of the interpretative personality of the musician.
Thanks to sampling, the musician chooses his own sounds, which he launches through technologised gestures to perform an unpredictable and chaotic musical discourse, "entertaining" himself while completely ignoring the working conditions under which the device he is using is manufactured.
We can conclude that sampling is already part of today's musical discourse, originally as a representation of pre-existing sounds, but now also of sounds that cannot be recreated acoustically. The hybridisation of the physical gesture and (beat) with the electronic result results in infinite possible, unpredictable, creative and even contradictory combinations. Losing the visual referent of the sound source, the spectator and listener opens his ears to an experience detached from what is observed, to concentrate on what is heard: Sometimes, to try to recognise the source of that sound without seeing it. At other times, because it is unrecognisable, simply to listen.
Sampling as an opening of doors towards a non-physical dimension of the sound source.
Luis Azcona is a percussionist and contemporary creator from Zaragoza specialising in Sound Arts and Chamber Music.
One of the young percussionists most committed to new music in our country, he has collaborated with authors such as Wojtek Blecharz, Yiran Zhao, Michael Maierhof, Yesid Fonseca and Arturo Corrales, and has premiered works by V. Garcia, A. Bernal, H. Cánovas, L. Azzigotti, L. Cánovas, L. Azzigotti and L. Azzigotti. Garcia, A. Bernal, H. Cánovas, L. Azzigotti, L. Barber, E. Valiente, I. Ojeda-García, M. Picaporte, Ch. Spitzenstaetter, W. Mukai, G. Ragués and D. Carrillo. Carrillo.
A former student of Brian Archinal at HKB Berne, Luis bases his work on the exploration between poetry, sociology and politics. His aesthetic universe is situated between noise, post-percussion, the historical approach to contemporary music and a multidisciplinary vision of artistic experience.
In 2021 he was admitted to the academies of Ensemble Modern (IEMA) and Ensemble Intercontemporain (Ulysses Ensemble). He has played in some of the most relevant new music festivals in Europe, such as Mixtur, Manifeste Paris, Ensems Festival, etc. He has presented his first solo project, /EMPTY/HANDS, in several concerts in Switzerland and Spain.
He actively collaborates with Ensemble Plural (Madrid), OCAZ Enigma (Zaragoza), CROSSING LINES (Barcelona), Schallfeld (Graz), Lemniscate (Basel) or NEKO3 (Copenhagen), and is a regular member of the ensembles Synergein Project in Valencia and Cuarto de Tono in Zaragoza. In 2022 he founded MEJOR SORDO with Joel Rico.
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