Thu 18.10.2018 at 19 Temppeliaukio Church
Following its successful Summer Play Festival, Chamber Orchestra Avanti! returns to the Helsinki audience full of the will to perform. The autumn concert presents composer, conductor and singer H.K.Gruber, whose breakthrough work Frankenstein!! (1977-79) is the main work of the concert.
Performers:
Avanti! Chamber Orchestra
HK Gruber, conductor and vocal soloist
Programme:
Kurt Weill: Berlin in the light
Hanns Eisler: Ballad of charity
Hanns Eisler: Ballad of the bag-snatchers
Hanns Eisler: Ballad of Nigger Jim
Kurt Weill: Oil music
Louis Andriessen: Workers Union
HK Gruber: Frankenstein!!
Pan-demonium for singer and orchestra to poems by H. C. Artmann:
Fanfare, Prologue.
Dedication / Miss Dracula
Goldfinger and Bond / John Wayne / Monster
Monsterlet
Fanfare, Intermezzo
Frankenstein
Rat Song and Crusoe Song
Superman
Finale: The green-haired man / Batman and Robin / Monster in the Park
Austrian-born HK (Heinz Karl) Gruber (b. 1943) laid the foundations for his musical career in the world-famous Wiener Sängerknaben boys’ choir, in whose ranks he sang during his school years. His full-time musical studies followed at the Vienna Musikhochschule, where he studied composition and other subjects.
Gruber started his career as a double bassist with die reihe ensemble and then had a long career with the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra, where he was a member from 1969 to 1998. Gruber is also a singer-actor and founding member of the MOB-art & tone-ART artist collective.
HK Gruber’s distinctive musical language has brought him considerable international success. His official style is “diatonic serialism”, but his breakthrough work Frankenstein!! (1977-79) has more ingredients than any compositional school that has made it into the history books will allow, which is probably the secret of the hundreds of performances it has received. The work is now being performed in Helsinki for the first time.
In Avant’s autumn season concert, HK Gruber is not only the composer but also the conductor and singer. His own work is a major conductor’s showpiece, requiring a varied and bold vocal and theatrical expression. The orchestra’s arsenal includes toy instruments. In turn, songs by Kurt Weil and Hanns Eisler at the beginning of the programme reveal Gruber’s skills in songwriting.
Louis Andriessen’s Workers Union is, according to its composer, a combination of individual freedom and strict discipline. The rhythm is well defined, but the tonal levels are only indicative. It is demanding to play and march in the same steps, a bit like doing politics: the idea of expression and the execution of expression require different things. Avant’s talents as a collective are put to full use!
The concert is supported by the Pro Musica Foundation.
