Roadrunner Trio (The Netherlands)
About the Music
PERFORMERS
ROADRUNNER TRIO
Erica Roozendaal, accordion
Michel Marang, clarinet
Antonis Pratsinakis, cello
Roadrunner was founded in 2014 in The Netherlands. The members of the ensemble came together to create a ‘pool’, where they could experiment with new ideas, regarding repertoire, arranging, improvising and playing together. Roadrunner is an environment where the musicians challenge each other, question contemporary/old customs and try to find new ways to really connect with the audience. We don’t play any specific genre, we like to explore a broad musical spectrum without losing focus. http://www.roadrunnertrio.com
PROGRAMME
1. Hoag’s Object by Erica Roozendaal
Hoag’s object is a ring-shaped star system with 8 billion stars. Ring-shaped systems are rare. One way they can be formed is by two galaxies colliding. Whilst I was searching for impressions of how the environment sounds on different planets, I found an impression of ‘the sound of two black holes colliding’. The rendering of audiowaves resulted in a pattern and this pattern is the base of the piece. – Erica Roozendaal
2. Birds, Autumn, Pain by Farshid Samandari
birds, autumn, pain is a program trio for clarinet, accordion and cello based on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (see text below). The piece depicts the analogy of birds encountering the drama of autumn: how they long for the flowers and respond to the aftermath of changing times and their saga of searching for flowers. The piece begins with some birdcalls and fluttering sounds and ends with a birdsong. Alongside the calls of various birds, birds, autumn, pain also alludes to a Bach prelude. – Farshid Samandari, Amsterdam, January 2020.
When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
And gather in the aftermath.
Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
In the silence and the gloom.
3. Lairon by Antonis Pratsinakis
Lairon is a piece written during the winter lockdown period of the COVID-19 pandemic, for Roadrunner Trio. My initial inspiration was “hope”, metaphorically appearing as a musical light beam. The Greek orthodox byzantine hymn of “Fos Ilaron” ; “O Gladsome Light” has been an strong influence. – Antonis Pratsinakis
4. The Fence, the Rooftop and the Distant Sea by Kinan Azmeh
Azmeh’s composition The Fence, The Rooftop, and the Distant Sea began with a moment. Years ago, Azmeh was sitting on a rooftop in Beirut, Lebanon. He was staring out past a fence at the distant sea. As his mind skimmed the waves, he entertained a series of images from Damascus, the hometown he’d been separated from. How far was home, or how close? He used a mental map to reconstruct ways of getting from his parents’ house to the opera house, where the traffic lights would be, which corners were where. Later, he composed music for the four-sectioned piece in which two characters turn over the complex notions of what is home, when you have it, when you lose it, how you recreate or reconstitute it. “In the beginning of the piece, the search for home is complicated and fraught,” he says. “As the music continues, one realizes the best are simplest memories; the music ends almost in the form of a lullaby.” – notes provided by Roadrunner Trio
Video Production Credits
Videography – Machiel Spruijt
Audio – Ron Ruiten
Editing – Michel Marang
Filmed at Uilenburger Synagogue in Amsterdam (The Netherlands).
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