Premiere of Hypermusic Prologue, by Hèctor Parra

Posted by Marcel Soleda on June 11, 2009  |  Leave a comment

Sunday 14 June saw the premiere of “Hypermusic Prologue, a projective opera in seven planes” at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, a work by the composer Hèctor Parra with a libretto by the well-known professor of theoretical physics from Harvard University, Lisa Randall.

It is new style of opera, a unique project for intercommunication between science, music and art. In this work the traditional form of opera is explored to generate a form of dramatic expression suited to the 21st century, its ideas and creative processes, including recent research into physics and its parallelisms with music and art.

Hypermusic Prologue was commissioned by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), the Centre Pompidou itself, and the Department of Culture of the Catalan Government.

The same production will be presented at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona on 27 and 28 de November.

Information about its premiere on the Catalan Television…

Opera 2.0 (3rd part)

Posted by Marcel Soleda on June 8, 2009  |  Leave a comment

In the last video of the series, the theoretical physicist and Harvard professor Lisa Randall, author of the libretto, talks about Hypermusic Prologue. The idea for the libretto came from one of her best-known books, “Warped passages” which was a best seller in the United States.

In Hypermusic Prologue, science, music and plastic arts find a meeting point in this innovative score, whose central character is a composer-scientist (soprano) torn between the love she feels for her partner (baritone) and her passion for research, her conviction that there is a much bigger world than we know waiting to be explored.

Opera 2.0 (2nd part)

Posted by Marcel Soleda on June 2, 2009  |  Leave a comment

The second part of the preparations for the premiere of Hypermusic Prologue, a new type of opera. This video focuses on the set design and the scenery, by the set designer Paul Desveaux and the artist Matthew Ritchie.

Opera 2.0 (1st part)

Posted by Leticia Martin on May 28, 2009  |  Leave a comment

Hypermusic Prologue, the opera by Hèctor Parra with a libretto by Lisa Randall, will be premiered in Paris on 14 June at the Centre Pompidou. During the two weeks leading up to this premiere we have been able to take a closer look at the Ensemble Intercontemporain’s work on its development and production, through the rehearsals and other videos with previous information.

Thanks to Youtube we can personally experience the birth of an opera in the 21st century.

Hypermusic Prologue and Hèctor Parra in Accents

Posted by Leticia Martin on May 6, 2009  |  Leave a comment

Issue no. 38 of the review Accents published by the Ensemble Intercontemporain is dedicated to Hèctor Parra’s Hypermusic Prologue.

Hypermusic Prologue is a unique project for intercommunication between science, music and art. It explores the traditional opera form in order to generate a type of dramatic expression for the 21st century, its ideas and creative processes, including recent research into physics and its parallelisms in music and art.

The main character, a composer and scientist, experiences deep tension between his “earthly love” and his “passion for knowledge”. This tension is built up dramatically through the contradictions between his life with his lover, limited in space and time, and his conviction that there is a much bigger world waiting to be explored.

This opera represents an opportunity to foster the search for more expressive forms for the drama and the musical possibilities. Its object is to find aesthetic structural connections through sound between that most abstract of the arts – music – and the highest concepts of theoretical physics, as researched by Lisa Randall and others. We hope the result will be a novel and fascinating creative experience.

The review is free and can be downloaded here.

Hèctor Parra, winner of the Premio Tendències award for up-and-coming creators

Posted by Leticia Martin on February 5, 2009  |  Leave a comment

The composer Hèctor Parra (Barcelona, 1976) has had a good start to 2009, a year that is going to confirm him as one of the most important Spanish composers on the international scene. On 19 January he received the Premio Tendencies for the outstanding, up-and-coming creator of the year in Catalonia, awarded by the Catalan edition of the newspaper El Mundo.

The composer was thrilled to win this prize, in particular because it represents recognition of his work in his home city, something that up till now has been more evident abroad. A good example of the interest this composer is arousing is the programming of his opera Hypermusic Prologue by the Teatre Liceo in Barcelona, undoubtedly his most ambitious work to date. This opera, with a libretto by the American physicist Lisa Randall, was commissioned by the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, and will be premiered in that city before coming to the Barcelona theatre.

Madrid has also just recently been the venue for a concert with works by Hèctor Parra. As part of the programming of Musicadhoy the Ensemble Recherche played his works Abîme- Antigona IV, String Trio and Piano Trio nº1: Wortschatten. These works have been recorded by the same ensemble on a monographic CD produced by the Austrian label Kairos in conjunction with Caja Madrid.

A talk with Lisa Randall

Posted by Marcel Soleda on December 15, 2008  |  Leave a comment

Yesterday published in The Boston Globe, an interview with Lisa Randall about her present project: the opera Hypermusic Prologue, by Hèctor Parra.

Read the whole interview…

Hèctor Parra and Lisa Randall: Hypermusic Prologue

Posted by Leticia Martin on December 9, 2008  |  2 Comments

At beginnings of 2008 the DLD (Digital, Live, Design) Conference in Munich provided a platform for the music of composer Hèctor Parra. DLD is one of the world’s leading showcases for digital design and interactions between art, science and technology, with the presence of many of the top names in this new network of creativity.

Hèctor Parra, the only Spaniard present at the conference, appeared with the artist Matthew Ritchie, the art patron and impresario Francesca von Habsburg and the theoretical physicist Lisa Randall, who is collaborating with Mr Parra on a chamber opera project entitled Hypermusic Prologue.

Check the video highlights after the jump…