Kukuruz Quartet :: Piano Interpretations

JULIUS EASTMAN by KUKURUZ QUARTET
"Piano Interpretations"

The powerful experimental work of African American pianist and composer Julius Eastman (1940-1990) has been rediscovered and increasingly performed lately. After playing with the avant-garde SEM Ensemble, with Morton Feldman, John Cage and Pauline Oliveros, or collaborating with Meredith Monk, Eastman began to focus his attention on his own compositions. His hypnotic sounds, in which Eastman incorporated a variety of improvised and expressionistic elements, overturned the conventions of established minimalist trends.

Afro-descendant and gay, some of his compositions' titles - "Nigger Fagot," "Crazy Nigger," "Gay Guerilla," and "If You So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?" - are an aggressive public and social confrontation. They contrast with the works themselves, which are often meditative and intellectually stimulating. Such workpieces speak for themselves when it comes to challenge serious orthodoxies.

The Swiss pianist Kukuruz Quartet - formed by Duri Collenberg, Lukas Rickli, Philip Bartels and Simone Kellet - continues its exploration around the post-minimalist political music of Julius Eastman, a composer and pianist presented for the first time in Portugal by BoCA.

MARCEL ZAES by KUKURUZ QUARTET
Kukuruz Quartet will also play the piece "Quartet No.10" by the Swiss composer Marcel Zaes.

The KUKURUZ QUARTET members are Duri Collenberg, Simone Keller, Lukas Rickli, Philip Bartels from Switzerland, founded in 2014. "Kukuruz" means corn in several languages, and the German-Swiss expression "Mais machen" (literally 'making corn') is a synonym for 'causing mischief'.