hcmf// 2010: Poppe masterpiece to open Festival

Enno Poppe

"Interzone combines its vocal and instrumental evocation of an intangible, disjointed urban landscape with multiple video screens that suggest the compound eyes of insects."

Prepare to be faced with the city as you’ve never experienced it before, as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival presents the UK premiere of leading German composer Enno Poppe’s Interzone as the opening concert of the 33rd festival.

Taking place on Friday 19 November in Bates Mill and conducted by Poppe himself, Interzone brings together Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, ensemble mosaik and the innovative visuals of digital artist Anne Quirynen for a journey through fragmented cityscapes where the ghost of William Burroughs collides with an insect’s-eye view of buildings and people.

Born in Hemer, Germany, in 1969, Enno Poppe has been musical director of ensemble mosaik since 1998. He studied conducting, composition and sound synthesis in Berlin and Karlsruhe and often uses computers and concepts from mathematics and biology in his work. In 2008 hcmf// presented the UK premiere of his three-part cycle Knocken, Salz and Öl, followed by the work Tiere sitzen nicht, a collaboration with Wolfgang Heiniger and musikFabrik, in 2009.

Interzone features text by the German poet and novelist Marcel Beyer and inspired by Burroughs’ collection of the same name, which compiles writings dating from when the Beat Generation author was living in Tangiers’ International Zone, including a piece originally intended for his disorientating 1959 novel The Naked Lunch.

First performed in Berlin in 2004, Interzone combines its vocal and instrumental evocation of an intangible, disjointed urban landscape with multiple video screens that suggest the compound eyes of insects. Mimicking the invisible paths followed by bees, Belgian film-maker Anne Quirynen splices together a play of surfaces, light and colour, her camera exploring the fabric of cities including Berlin, Mumbai and New York.

Click here to buy tickets for Interzone

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