Zappa and plate tectonics

A significant part of 20th-century American music owes its distinctive color to its close relationship with popular genres. Frank Zappa was a rock icon, although his deeper musical connections are more complex; beyond fierce social criticism and a stubborn defense of freedom of expression, Zappa's art owes much to the composers he loved: Igor Stravinsky, Edgar Varèse and Anton Webern.

John Zorn, whose career resembles a surrealist collage, juxtaposes a priori incompatible aesthetic positions: jazz, death metal, hardcore punk, klezmer, contemporary music. Political dissident Conlon Nancarrow - he was a communist - was expelled from the United States, and it was by force of circumstance that he composed exclusively for player piano, with brio. The evening will also provide an opportunity to get to know the Australian composer Liza Lim, whom Contrechamps has commissioned to write a new work for solo violin and ensemble.

This first concert of the season will take place on September 29 in Geneva's new Alhambra concert hall. The soloist will be the brilliant violinist David Grimal. The evening will be preceded by a lecture by Brice Pauset entitled "Musique populaire et musique contemporaine: une petite histoire d'un long malentendu".

A tectonic season
The 2015-2016 season is entitled "Plate Tectonics". The movements of tectonic plates are the source of the most beautiful landscapes, but also of intense disturbances. Echoing the geological model, Contrechamps will present concerts with clearly defined contours, while others will bring together works and aesthetic positions that are antagonistic, but dominated by a common idea. On March 18, 2016, the season will be marked by a spectacular concert at the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices, in collaboration with the HEM and the Festival Archipel, with the monumental Trans by Karlheinz Stockhausen, accompanied by the strange, premonitory poetry of Canadian composer Claude Vivier.

Find out more: www.contrechamps.ch