What will happen when an electronic musician, a solo drummer, or a post-krautrock band interpret a score that has been composed according to purely graphic aspects?
LETRA / TONE is explicitly devoted to the interaction between graphics and music, and continues the tradition and intention of graphical notation in presenting six world premieres: Renowned illustrators and graphic designer from Germany, Austria, France, Great Britain and Argentina create images that will be set into music by contemporary improvising and electronic musicians and ensembles.
http://https://youtube.com/watch?v=IMC4-1XAmwc
LETRA / TONE curator Hanno Leichtmann, a musician, producer, and graphic designer of his record labels, invited graphic designers Dennis Busch, Angela Lorenz, Philip Marshall, Caro Mikalef, Till Sperrle and Damien Tran. Their artwork will be musically transformed by Thomas Ankersmit, Cavern Of Anti-Matter, Jan Jelinek & Masayoshi Fujita, Andrea Neumann, Martin Brandlmayr and The Pitch.
Hanno Leichtmann’s comprehensive Letraset and Letratone* collection is the basis for the graphics. From this material the designers produce six so-called ‘action scores’. These musical graphics are then interpreted, rehearsed and presented by six musicians / ensembles over the course of two evenings, thus comprising of six world premiers. The ‘action scores’ will be exhibited during the festival.
http://https://youtube.com/watch?v=yI6ONFTO7L0
Emerging out of 20th century avant-garde, graphic notation attempted to visualize a music (and its possible interpretation) that was not representable by conventional means. In particular, the New Music of the 1950s through 1970s, with artists such as Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, John Cage and Karl-Heinz Stockhausen permanently inscribed the graphic score into the history of music and notation.
The two-day festival LETRA / TONE at Radialsystem V in Berlin continues the tradition and intention of graphical notation but transmits this approach into the present and thus adds a further dimension.
http://https://youtube.com/watch?v=2DMFV-O9aIU
* Letraset was a company and brand name that manufactured sheets of dry transferable typefaces before the proliferation of computers. Up until the 1980s, these were widely used by graphic designers as well as by engineers, for whom Letraset was a convenient way of applying type to surfaces.
In addition to letters in various fonts and sizes, sheets with graphic elements (Letratone) were available. The latter is the namesake of the festival and contains both the graphical (LETRA) and the musical (TONE) in its name.
The LETRA / TONE Festival is presenting by Digital in Berlin. We are giving away 3 x 2 tickets for every night. Please check our Facebook Page to win the tickets.
LETRA / TONE: Festival of Graphics and Music
Friday, 11 April & Saturday, 12 April 2014 | 20:00 CET
Radialsystem V | Holzmarktstraße 33 | 10243 Berlin/Friedrichshain
letra-tone.com | radialsystem.de | Facebook
