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Oliver Thurley in Berlin (March 25th)

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Riot Ensemble play Oliver Thurley's The heart is a knot as part of their concert in Berlin's MaerzMusik festival, details here.

Thurley describes the work as:

the heart is a knot is for trepidation, delicate touch, the grain of flesh and bow, and softly traced harmonic lines. the performance focuses on the microscopic detail and boundaries of unstable harmonics. the performer entangles herself in points of friction, tremors, turbulence, and the grain of a body moving with the instrument.

The entire piece is extremely quiet and located in the space between the end of the fingerboard and the bridge. Pitches are not notated specifically in the score. Instead, pitch zones act as areas in which to navigate various stable, unstable, and dead points. For each string, this space is divided into three approximate zones: low, medium, and high (e.g. II-Lo, IV-Med, etc.).

commissioned by Riot Ensemble with funds from the Ernst von Siemens music foundation

More on the piece here, including score and video - http://www.oliverthurley.co.uk/works/heartknot

musical score excerpt. A few faint scratchy horizonal lines wander across the page, occasionally breaking or punctuated by instructions.