100 cymbals

Installation concert for 100 melodious percussion cymbals offering a unique experience (also visual) and an exercise in deep listening.

100 cymbals is a unique concert and listening experience at the same time, in which the musicians of Les Percussions de Strasbourg, led by Ryoji Ikeda, immerse themselves in the vastness of vibrations. It is more an audio-visual installation with elements of performance than a random concert. Ikeda is a leading Japanese musical and visual artist. Known above all for his ambient work with lightly defined rhythms, he has always been close to the glitch and noise scene, thanks to Carsten Nicolai (Alva Noto), with whom he collaborated many times. In 100 cymbals he reveals his new face of the apologist of deep listening, drawing at the same time a thin line between noise and harmonic resonance. This project, by its very nature, became a deep study of the possibilities of this simple copper-bass instrument. We can easily imagine the unbearable, chaotic, arrhythmic din generated by a hundred metal percussion cymbals struck randomly, however that has nothing to do with the real effect! It is actually a light drone with changing harmonies caressing the eardrums like the sweet sound of the violin. This music offers an almost polyphonic-choir-like melodiousness, clearly indicating how delicate an instrument it is.

The concert will open with a new reading of a work by John Cage, dedicated to Hans Arp and presented to Les Percussions de Strasbourg (Cage is considered to be one of the co-founders of the Neo-Dada movement, particularly because of his attitude to nature and his cosmogonic conception of art). Under the direction of Ryoji Ikeda, this piece takes on a new character – the objects appearing in the score (wood, water, glass, metal) were replaced by traditional, ceremonial Japanese instruments (hyōshigi).