27 May, 2015 Sabatini Building, east and west stairs
JEAN-LUC GUIONNET Y ARTUR VIDAL. TWO SIMULTANEOUS CONCERTS FOR TWO STAIRCASES. BABBLING AND GLOSSOLALIAS
The concert featuring these two saxophonists is held simultaneously in two symmetrical staircases, separated by some two hundred metres – despite the fact that nowadays they are cut off, in the past they were an essential part of the building in its years as a hospital. The intervention stems from the interaction of the wind instrument with the granite, enormous staircase and the setting it occurs in.
This is the first time both world-renowned saxophonists have worked together, although they will be performing in different places and hearing them at the same time will be impossible. The simultaneity of the intervention looks to break away from the duo structure in which the performers communicate by seeing and listening to one another, and looks to rethink the arrangement of a standard programme, where one musician follows the other in time.
Both musicians have worked with the potential of the instrument and the circumstances that arise in live performance. Artur Vidal’s work interacts with the specific site and the space it circulates around, while the music of Jean-Luc Guionnet relates external elements and the instrument used to a question or theoretical principle, for instance what is rumour. (text by Museo Reina Sofía)
This concert was part of Resonance, a series of sound interventions, curated by José Luis Espejo, activating the acoustic and historical space in the Museo Reina Sofía’s Sabatini Building.
