Music Matters

2 June 2007

Saturday 2 June 2007 12:15-13:00 (Radio 3)

Tom Service travels to Paris to visit the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique, or IRCAM. Founded in 1977 by Pierre Boulez at the behest of President Georges Pompidou, IRCAM is a research centre for new music and associated technologies.

Thirty years on, Tom finds out what goes on at the IRCAM today and asks how relevant it is as an institution in the context of 21st century art music, and French culture generally. With contributions from Pierre Boulez, Georgina Born, Roger Nichols and Jonathan Harvey.

Duration:

45 minutes

In this programme

IRCAM - Special Edition
The Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique has been a key institution on the new music scene for thirty years. It began as the utopian dream of Pierre Boulez in the early 1970s and became a reality with the support of president Georges Pompidou. Boulez's vision was to combine the skills of avant-garde composers with the best of music technology and the most advanced computer systems of the day - to create the music of the future.

Tom went to Paris to take a tour of the IRCAM building, next door to the Centre Pompidou. Apart from the Renzo Piano-designed tower, there is little to suggest the existence of IRCAM from the outside. Most of the institution is underground - a warren of offices, studios and the unique performing and recording spaces essential to the collaborative work of composers and technicians there. Tom's guide was Andrew Gerzso, Boulez's key technical advisor, who explains the remarkable acoustic-changing possibilities of the Projection Space and the bizarre egg-box like Anechoic Chamber.

Tom talks with the current Director of IRCAM, Frank Madlener, and to Pierre Boulez himself about his ongoing work at IRCAM, despite having given up the Directorship in 1992.

Though a utopian vision, IRCAM has still had problems in the course of its three decades. In the early 80s, Boulez sacked the directors he had appointed only a few years before, including composers like Luciano Berio and Vinko Globokar, and there was further upheaval throughout the 1980s, along with much criticism of the slow rate of production for compositions created. There were successes though: IRCAM had a huge influence on composers like Magnus Lindberg, George Benjamin, Kaija Saariaho, Tristan Murail and Gerard Grisey, for example.

To discuss the impact of IRCAM and its place today, Tom is joined by the cultural anthropologist Georgina Born, the French music specialist Roger Nichols and the composer Jonathan Harvey, who is currently working on a piece at IRCAM for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
It's a journey into the heart of what was once a musical promised land of pure experimentation. But has IRCAM produced the musical results, the great pieces that stand the test of time, to justify its unique institutional standing? And what does the future hold for the IRCAM sound?

IRCAM's Agora Festival takes place June 6^th - 24^th and includes the French premiere of Jonathan Harvey's opera Wagner Dream.
Jonathan Harvey's work can also be heard on BBC Radio 3's Hear and Now on July 7^th: Featured pieces: Body Mandala; Tranquil Abiding; Timepieces for two conductors with Kaffe Matthews, Ilan Volkov and Stefan Solyom.

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Episode and Playlist Information

• 9 Jun 07 Royal Festival Hall
• 2 Jun 07 IRCAM
• 19 May 07 Oliver Knussen
• 12 May 2007
• 28 Apr 07 Proms Conference
• 21 April 2007
• 14 April 2007

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