University of Bradford programme leader organises rare performance of pioneering electronic music
Mark Goodall, programme lead for MA Independant Filmmaking at the University of Bradford, is project director for a pioneering electronic music performance in Liverpool.
The performance is to take place at Liverpool's Metropolitan Cathedral on the evening of Saturday 13 May 2017, 50 years after the piece was commissioned.
“The Liverpool Mass” was developed by Pierre Henry for the inauguration of Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King in 1967. The mass was not completed on time however, and an alternate piece was used.
Musique Concrete
Pierre Henry is known worldwide for developing music through a form of composition called “musique concrete”, which uses electronically treated natural sounds. Henry’s influential music has been sampled by many artists over the years, including Fatboy Slim.
The performance will be mixed live by Henry’s collaborator Thierry Balasse, and broadcast through a specially created 40-speaker soundsystem.
A high point
The University of Bradford’s Mark Goodall, project director for the performance, said, “The Cathedral, and the music specially composed for it, represents a high point in the application of modernist art and design to the realm of the religious and spiritual. The futuristic and modernist design for the Cathedral by Frederick Gibberd will be enhanced by the unusual music of Pierre Henry.”
Further information on the performance can be found on the Bluecoat website.