the vielle à roue

[Editor's Note: On Monday we had Nissim Schaul give a demonstration of a hurdy-gurdy. I asked him to write about the instrment. (Fortunately he didn't have to travel with this instrument on a plane.)]

I brought my hurdy-gurdy with me to Music10 entirely in order to proselytize for the instrument. I’m not the best spokesman, since I’m still a bit of a beginner, but a few days ago, I got to give a half-hour to talk about the instrument in front of lots of other composers. I was excited!

So, to start with, I’m not talking about an organ-grinder.  It’s unfortunate that in English, two instruments have one name on account of the crank.  But a monkey could never play the vielle à roue  (I’ll use the French word from here on out, since I’ve been learning the French version of the instrument.)  It’s actually a pretty complicated instrument – lots of moving parts.  First, most famously, are the drones (the bourdons – the bumblebees).  My student instrument has four drone strings, though many vielles have 6-8, not to mention the ringing sympathetic strings.  One of my four drones is special, called the chien (the dog).   Most of the strings are on a stable bridge, but the chien’s bridge moves, meaning that it buzzes when hit hard.  That allows a vielleur to add a rhythmic aspect to an instrument that otherwise is quite static.

Music 10 Composers 1

Another post by Maria Grenfell. :)
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The title of the concert held on Tuesday 29 June really sounds like an imaginary World Cup score.  Fortunately, in this case, the composers won and there wasn’t a vuvuzela within coo-ee.  Sorry, that’s my fake Australianness coming out, while surrounded by Americans here in the beautiful Swiss alps...

The first concert of works by participant composers featured a wide variety of pieces that we have come to expect during this week of multi-faceted music-making.  Opening the program was “Quartet (after...)” by Wenhui Xie.  This is a re-working of material from her Symphony no. 1, and commemorates the tragic loss of many children during the 2008 Chinese earthquake.  Long static lines were punctuated by sharp gestures, breath tones and key clicks from clarinet, circular motions on violin strings, speech from the percussionist, and playing inside the piano with fishing line.  Absolute control was required by the players, and it was a dramatic way to begin the evening.

Ecstatic Dances

Here's a post by composer Maria Grenfell. The photo is also hers.
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An abundance of exciting contemporary flute music gave eighth blackbird flutist Tim Munro the grand idea of staging a concert at the Music 10 Festival featuring music written for flutes of many sizes and in various combinations.  The opening concert of the Festival on Monday 28 June, Ecstatic Dances, treated the audience to music by composers from Estonia, Australia and the USA.  With contrasting approaches to timbre and musical materials, the performance showcased the superb talents of the musicians at Music 10, whose dedicated approach to learning and performing new music is at the heart of this unique two-week collaboration between composers and performers.


Opening the program was UNCLOSE, by New York composer Hannah Lash, a participant at the Festival.  Written for soprano, two percussionists and piano, the piece featured a range of extended techniques for voice and piano, punctuated by scraping and sighing unpitched percussion sounds, silences, as well as the extraordinary voice of Lindsay Kesselman, who seemed to pluck high notes effortlessly out of nowhere and wove the syllabic text and vocalisations on the composer’s poetry in a performance that held the audience captive.

Château de Chillon Pictures

Joel Hoffman Presentation

So...this should have been up earlier, but with everything else going on (rehearsals, napping, eating, composer/performer nerd games in the evening), I'm a little behind. Here's my thought's on Joel Hoffman's presentation.

Joel Hoffman gave a presentation on his music a few days ago, not exactly knowing what he was going to play for us. He admitted that he had sort of a dilemma as to what to share; he didn't want to play music that some of us had already heard (there are a few of us CCMers here), nor did could he share his most recent music. (By the way, a few of us young composers had the SAME problem; I personally had troubles deciding what to bring for composer show-and-tell.) He did want to share his music, but he didn't want to play anything that some of us have heard before, plus he didn't have any recordings of his new style.

I have been curious about this new style for some time ever since he mentioned his use of silences during my lessons. He has been talking about it for weeks now, and here I was curious to hear any recordings of his music to demonstrate this compositional turn. Alas, there were no recordings, so Joel turned to improvisation instead (for the most part).

Day 8

Today's post was written by participant composer Amy Beth Kirsten:

If last night's concert was the only musical event that I got to experience at this festival it would have been worth the trip. I don't know about you, but those transcendent, life-altering musical experiences don't come along that often and when they do, well, it's powerful.

From the accidental prologue of church bells, to Matthew's final winding down of the woodblock in Hartke's Meanwhile, I had completely lost myself...and found music all over again - isn't it great to fall in love with sound? Oh yes, it was one of those concerts.

The whole concert was so terrifically paced; I don't think it could have been programmed better. With Hartke's Percolative Processes it was impossible not to be drawn in - quiet waves of intense and ever-shifting color that, to me, evoke earth elements - it was the perfect door to walk through. Once fully inside the metaphoric "room," we had the pleasure of experiencing Bresnick's My Twentieth Century. Like many of the fellows here, I'd only ever heard this piece as a recording. As effective as it is as a recorded piece, it profoundly aches with heartbreak when experienced live. The obsessive and unrelenting rhythm married with a joyous harmonic language creates an emotional conflict that feels so honestly born from the text - as I said last night, "you had me at 'fireflies.'" And I just have to say that the delivery of lines of text was so much more than mere delivery - each one of you felt truly plugged into the energy and sound of words in such a visceral way...all I have left to say is WOW.

Day 7

Sunday began a new chapter in our time here at Music10. After our final round of composer presentations, guest composer Martin Bresnick and guest pianist Lisa Moore arrived around lunch time.  It's really great to have them here! Several participants already knew them, so they have been catching up over meals and hanging out on the porch. Those of us who did not know them are enjoying getting to know them. As we have mentioned before, one of the big advantages of this festival is the continual interaction between everyone here. We get to know each other personally, as well as artistically.

(Music10 flutists Pethrus Gärdborn, Tim Munro, and Kelli Kathman)


That night we had our first concert, held in the Bartok Hall here at the Hindemith Centre. The performance mostly featured contemporary flute chamber music, but also included UNCLOSE by participant composer Hannah Lash. (Hannah's work was programmed on this concert because she needed to leave on Monday.) Scored for soprano, piano, and two percussion, UNCLOSE juxtaposed sung poetry with humming and percussive vocal effects, which were mirrored by brushing and murmuring in the instrumental parts. Soprano Lindsay Kesselman, pianist Erika Dohi, and percussionists Matthew Duvall and Christian Smith gave a wonderfully sensitive performance of this haunting, ethereal work.