Alberto Posadas
Alberto Posadas was born in Valladolid in 1967. It was there that he began his musical training, which he continued and concluded in Madrid.
In 1988 he became acquainted with Francisco Guerrero, with whom he studied composition and whom he regarded as his most important mentor. The meeting represented an important turning point in his career. It was while studying under Guerrero that he discovered new techniques with which to shape musical forms, such as mathematical combinatorics and fractals. Nonetheless, his constant, self-determined quest to integrate aesthetics into this process led him to develop his own models of composition, such as the translation of architectural spaces to music, the application of topology and perspective-related painting techniques and the exploration of the acoustic features of instruments at the “microscopic” level.
In an autodidactic manner, he explores the possibilities inherent in electronic music.
Since 2006, he has worked at IRCAM on projects with live electronics in connection with other artistic fields such as video and dance. In the latter case, he examined the connections and application of movement to the electronic transformation of sound.
In 2006, Alberto Posadas received a grant from the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid for a research project with saxophonist Andrés Gomis into new playing techniques on the bass saxophone and their use in composing. He has written works for festivals and institutions including Agora (IRCAM) in Paris, the Donaueschinger Musiktage, the Musica Festival in Strasbourg, Casa da Música Porto, Ars Musica Brussels and for the Spanish CDMC and the Asociación de Orquestas Sinfónicas Españolas. In 2002 he won the audience award at the Ars Musica festival in Brussels for his string quartet "A silentii sonitu". Ensemble intercontemporain selected him for their “reading panel 2003/2004”, and his participation was followed by a commission from this ensemble. His music has been performed as such prominent festival as Ultraschall Berlin, Encontros Gulbenkian Lisbon and the other festivals mentioned above.
His works have been played by well-known performers including Ensemble intercontemporain, Ensemble L‘itineraire, Ensemble Court-Circuit, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Quatuor Diotima, the Arditti String Quartet, the Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg etc., under conductors including Arturo Tamayo, Pascal Rophé, Pierre-André Valade and Beat Furrer. Since 1991, he has taught as a professor for work analysis, harmony and composing fundamentals, and he currently teaches at the Music Conservatory of Majadahonda (Madrid).
Since 2006, he has worked at IRCAM on projects with live electronics in connection with other artistic fields such as video and dance. In the latter case, he examined the connections and application of movement to the electronic transformation of sound.
In 2006, Alberto Posadas received a grant from the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid for a research project with saxophonist Andrés Gomis into new playing techniques on the bass saxophone and their use in composing. He has written works for festivals and institutions including Agora (IRCAM) in Paris, the Donaueschinger Musiktage, the Musica Festival in Strasbourg, Casa da Música Porto, Ars Musica Brussels and for the Spanish CDMC and the Asociación de Orquestas Sinfónicas Españolas. In 2002 he won the audience award at the Ars Musica festival in Brussels for his string quartet "A silentii sonitu". Ensemble intercontemporain selected him for their “reading panel 2003/2004”, and his participation was followed by a commission from this ensemble. His music has been performed as such prominent festival as Ultraschall Berlin, Encontros Gulbenkian Lisbon and the other festivals mentioned above.
His works have been played by well-known performers including Ensemble intercontemporain, Ensemble L‘itineraire, Ensemble Court-Circuit, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Quatuor Diotima, the Arditti String Quartet, the Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg etc., under conductors including Arturo Tamayo, Pascal Rophé, Pierre-André Valade and Beat Furrer. Since 1991, he has taught as a professor for work analysis, harmony and composing fundamentals, and he currently teaches at the Music Conservatory of Majadahonda (Madrid).
La lumière du noir
The exhibition that took place in late 2009 at Centre Pompidou in Paris around Pierre Soulages's painting produced in me a strong impact, especially its production from the 80's.
I immediately thought that his paintings and especially his concept of "outrenoir" could have strong links with the sound universe.
This is the backdrop of La lumière du noir which, while using the imagery of Soulages, aims to pay homage to him.
The work is based on the idea of extracting light from the darkness. This apparent paradox is well settled in the Soulages-painting, where light emerges from the black and it is transmuted through the reflection produced by the texture of the painting, by how the paint is applied on its surface. Similarly, La lumière du noir gives raise the transmutation of musical material, filtered through textural treatments. Since states of greater darkness or opacity evolves to states of greater luminosity and transparency.
The black in his paintings becomes a source of light surround, which creates its own space. In this musical composition the sound matter, sometimes absorbed by another, sometimes reflected, it also creates a topological characterisitic space.
In Soulages, black is stripped of its possible symbolic meanings and acquires significance as a pictoral object itself. It is a color that transcendends thr specific notion of coulor to become matter. Similarly in La lumière du noir, the sound is musical matter itself, important as an object that comes from the specifity of the used instruments.
(Alberto Posadas)
The exhibition that took place in late 2009 at Centre Pompidou in Paris around Pierre Soulages's painting produced in me a strong impact, especially its production from the 80's.
I immediately thought that his paintings and especially his concept of "outrenoir" could have strong links with the sound universe.
This is the backdrop of La lumière du noir which, while using the imagery of Soulages, aims to pay homage to him.
The work is based on the idea of extracting light from the darkness. This apparent paradox is well settled in the Soulages-painting, where light emerges from the black and it is transmuted through the reflection produced by the texture of the painting, by how the paint is applied on its surface. Similarly, La lumière du noir gives raise the transmutation of musical material, filtered through textural treatments. Since states of greater darkness or opacity evolves to states of greater luminosity and transparency.
The black in his paintings becomes a source of light surround, which creates its own space. In this musical composition the sound matter, sometimes absorbed by another, sometimes reflected, it also creates a topological characterisitic space.
In Soulages, black is stripped of its possible symbolic meanings and acquires significance as a pictoral object itself. It is a color that transcendends thr specific notion of coulor to become matter. Similarly in La lumière du noir, the sound is musical matter itself, important as an object that comes from the specifity of the used instruments.
(Alberto Posadas)