Karlheinz Stockhausen's last piece of electronic music, Cosmic Pulses, will have its New York premiere as part of the fourth annual Darmstadt: Essential Repertoire Festival. With an 8-channel sound system surrounding the audience, Cosmic Pulses is a behemoth undertaking, more sonic roller coaster than traditional concert piece – and the key to understanding Stockhausen's final phase as a composer.
In 2004, after completing Light, his cycle of 7 operas for each day of the week, Stockhausen began a new cycle called Sound, for the 24 hours in a day. Written in 2007, Cosmic Pulses is the 13th hour from the Sound cycle. The remaining pieces in the cycle use partial mix-downs of Cosmic Pulses as tape accompaniments for live performers.
Cosmic Pulses will be paired on the program with Stockhausen’s early electronic masterpiece Telemusik (1966) and an excerpt from Orchestra Finalists (1996), the second scene of Wednesday from the Light cycle.
The concert will be performed by Joe Drew from Analog Arts. Drew is a trumpeter and composer who specializes in the music of Stockhausen, and he presented the US premiere of Cosmic Pulses in 2008. That same year, Drew toured with Markus Stockhausen and Marco Blaauw in musikFabrik’s production of Michael’s Journey Around the World, the second act from the entire Light cycle. Drew is also the director of the Iron Composer competition and a doctoral fellow at NYU Steinhardt.
Analog Arts will give the New York premiere of “Cosmic Pulses."
