CRASH – Transart

Transart26 kicks off with CRASH, a musical performance dedicated to the cutting edge of sonic and audiovisual exploration, presented in collaboration with the Haydn Foundation of Bolzano and Trento. Featuring the Italian premieres of Simon Steen-Andersen’s Piano Concerto and Michael Gordon and Bill Morrison’s Gotham, the event shatters convention, boldly redefining the boundaries of the traditional concert. Performed by the Haydn Orchestra under the baton of Vimbayi Kaziboni, these two works create a powerful dialogue between sound and image, turning the musical experience into a dense, pulsating sensory organism.

Piano Concerto by Simon Steen-Andersen Experimentation is the defining thread of Piano Concerto (2014) by Simon Steen-Andersen, the Danish composer renowned for his mastery in weaving performance, video, and sonic research into radically new expressive languages. At its core lies an intense multimedia dialogue: pianist Ning Yu, performing on a pristine, perfectly tuned instrument, engages with a video installation featuring a second performer, Nicholas Hodges – an icon of contemporary pianism who premiered the piece in Donaueschingen in 2014 – interacting with the shattered remnants of a piano that plummeted eight metres onto a concrete floor. Hodges reappears here as a virtual presence, serving as the digital counterpart in this ‘double concerto’. The tension between the precision of the intact instrument and the fractured materiality of the ‘wounded’ piano becomes the very substance of the music. The orchestra absorbs this energy, amplifying it and translating it into a score of remarkable density and precision, expanding the event across space and time.

Gotham by Michael Gordon and Bill Morrison Gotham is a hypnotic, sensory journey through New York, the city that never sleeps, brought to life by composer Michael Gordon and filmmaker Bill Morrison. Archival footage of early twentieth-century New York, a metropolis in the throes of industrial and urban upheaval, converges with Gordon’s music in a cinematic symphony that breathes life into the city’s collective memory. From bustling construction sites and smoke-shrouded skylines to elevators scaling skyscrapers and fleeting pastoral scenes – a flock of sheep grazing in Central Park – the work assembles a fragmented portrait of a city in a state of perpetual flux. The score swells and ignites, shifting from fragile whispers to overwhelming crescendos, capturing the chaotic intensity and tireless energy of the urban landscape. Gotham moves beyond idealisation, choosing instead to reveal the grit, the noise and the relentless pulse of the city, embracing both its harshness and its wonder. It is an immersive experience that pulls the viewer into the very soul of the Big Apple, where memory, movement and dreams all intertwine. The ticket grants access to both performances.