a4 compositions
Great Learning Orchestra playing A4 compositions
at Kulturhuset, Stockholm 26th September 2004
The A4 Project
Textile by Miya Cuzner
The latest and perhaps most fascinating and creative feat of the Great Learning Orchestra is the A4 Project. Leif Jordansson, artistic leader of the GLO, came up with this idea, which turned out be a brilliant way of achieving new scores to premier.
Robin McGinley & Martin Q Larsson
in an A4 piece by Larsson
The invitation to write an A4 piece – i.e. a piece that will – score wise – fit onto a A4 piece of paper (the European standard size) – was written by Leif Jordansson, and still stands, since the orchestra will keep on utilizing this method of obtaining scores to premier:
a4
For The Great Learning Orchestra
Something that has fascinated me for a long time is how music that takes a small space on paper can change, and generate pieces of considerable length and variety when performed. I have been thinking about creating a room where an orchestra can perform such pieces while they are exhibited around the walls.
This is an invitation to write a piece for the Great Learning Orchestra, an ensemble which consists of anything from two to one hundred musicians, and that has performed many pieces from the experimental catalogue. Read more about the orchestra at this website:
http://www.sonoloco.com/rev/composers/glo/learningframes.html
Performance duration, instrumentation and the number of players for the piece that you write are left open. The only restriction is that the piece must be written on one side of A4 paper only, and is signed by you at the bottom right-hand corner.
The compensation we can offer is a recording of the work and a promise that we only will play it in the name of GLO. It is envisaged that several of these pieces will be performed in a forthcoming a4 festival. This invitation is being sent to a number of composers, musicians and sound artists, and can be freely distributed, simply by copying this paper and passing it on.
The Great Learning Orchestra
Leif Jordansson
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Of course, the score can be of any kind that will, in the end, produce music. It can be a traditionally notated piece, since the musicians of the Great Learning Orchestra all are schooled and experienced musicians (contrary to the case with the Scratch Orchestra, which also included non-musicians), but it can also be a graphic score or just verbal instructions, in the manner of Stockhausen's Aus den Sieben Tagen or some of Cornelis Cardew’s works, like The Tiger’s Mind.
Robin McGinley & Bebe Risenfors
of the Great Learning Orchestra
The first A4 piece that I read and heard was Johan Boberg’s Buddhatone, which the Great Learning Orchestra performed twice at SAMI in Stockholm in February 2004.
BUDDHATONE
imagine a sound without an end
imagine exactly what it would sound like
let the sound take form
enter into the sound and become a part of it
a swarming glowing light
.
hear a sound not originating from you
slowly transform your sound so that it becomes a part of the other
leave a sound that has reached its goal
let a sound go when it has left you
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The result was stunning, with a glowing, austere beauty that all present surely felt. The second rendition was quite different from the first, and this is the case with all these A4 compositions. Of course, Johan Boberg’s score text is as much a piece of poetry as it is a playing instruction.
The first official performance of a whole range of A4 compositions took place in Gothenburg, at Röda Sten, on 29th August 2004. That event resulted in a CD called The Great Learning Orchestra Plays A4 Pieces at Röda Sten, containing A4 works by Bebe Risenfors, Nils Personne, Pelle Halvarsson, Leif Jordansson, Håkan Sandsjö, Peter Schuback and Paul Bothén. In addition, a piece by Cornelius Cardew – Schooltime Special – was also performed.
A month later, on 26th September, during the festival Nordic Excellence in Stockholm, The Great Learning Orchestra played A4 pieces the whole afternoon at Studio 3 in Kulturhuset.
The orchestra was placed on a stage built in the center of the room, so that the audience could come in and stroll around the orchestra while they were playing. The scores were hung all around the walls, and the score that was presently being played was also displayed on a board by the orchestra.
I arrived in a break, as the members of the orchestra filtered out for coffee or food, and when the room was empty Peter Schuback with his family showed up. I asked him if he wouldn’t mind playing something, since there were cellos lying around. He hopped onto stage and started performing from Bach’s Cello Suites! That is the kind of environment that the Great Learning Orchestra exists in, spiritually. There is an aura of a grand artistic freedom around The Great Learning Orchestra. Peter Schuback also had an A4 piece performed during the day; L’heure du panurge. That is also part of the CD from the Gothenburg performance – but these pieces never sound the same from performance to performance, so L’heure du panurge may well be a part of the CD from t he Stockholm event, sounding very different.
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