Richard Beaudoin
The music of Richard Beaudoin (b. 1975) has been performed by some of the finest musicians in Europe and America, including the soprano Annette Dasch, the Kreutzer, Lydian and Chiara String Quartets, pianists Marilyn Nonken, Mark Knoop, Constantine Finehouse and Wolfram Rieger, organist Clive Driskill-Smith and tenor Joseph Kaiser. Mr. Beaudoin’s works have been premièred at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Wiener Konzerthaus, New York’s Weill Recital Hall/Carnegie Hall and London’s Royal Festival Hall. He has received commissions from the Konzerthaus-Dortmund and the Staatstheater-Kassel. His writings on music have been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism and Perspectives of New Music, and his latest works pioneer a compositional technique involving micro-measured interpretations. Mr. Beaudoin currently holds the post of Lecturer on Music at Harvard University.
In Development
Photorealism: Micro-measured Interpretations as Compositional Material
Mr. Beaudoin’s recent works inaugurate a new compositional process called 'Photorealism'. His discovery, made in collaboration with Dr. Olivier Senn of the Hochschule Lucerne, allows micro-rhythmic and micro-dynamic measurements of iconic recordings to be transcribed into standard notation and to serve as the basis for new compositions. This technique has links to both photography and the musical tradition of cantus firmus.
The first series of works to use the photorealistic method are Mr. Beaudoin’s Étude d’un prélude [Study of a prelude] which engage with Martha Argerich’s 1975 recording of Chopin’s Prélude Op. 28/4, and commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Chopin’s birth. Performances of these works have already begun, and will continue throughout 2010. Mr. Beaudoin has been invited to give lectures on this process at Cambridge University (23 March 2010), The Royal Academy of Music, London (19 March 2010), The Steinhardt School at New York University (4 Feb 2010) and New England Conservatory (16 April 2010). Premières include concerts by Mark Knoop (at King’s Place, London) Marilyn Nonken (at CNMAT, UCBerkeley), and the Kreutzer Quartet (at Wiltons Hall, London).
In addition to the performances and lectures, these works have become the focus of scholarship by Professors Stephen Davies and Jonathan McKeown-Green (philosophers at the University of Auckland), and interviews with the composer are currently being conducted by the musicologist Danick Trottier. Mr. Beaudoin is now composing works based on music by Webern, Mahler, Bach and Thelonious Monk.
Completed works include:
Étude d'un prélude I - Chopin desséché, for solo piano (7’30”)
Étude d'un prélude II - Flutter echoes, for string quartet (8’30”)
Étude d'un prélude III - Wehmut, for voice and piano (3’)
Étude d'un prélude IV - Black Wires, for solo piano (7’)
Étude d'un prélude V - Photorealism, for orchestra (12’30”)
Étude d'un prélude VI - The Real Thing, for string quartet (5’)
Étude d'un prélude VII – Latticed Window, for solo piano (1’51”)
Étude d'un prélude VIII - Kertész Distortion, for string quartet (7’30”)
Étude d'un prélude IX - And they talked about Chopin again, for narrator and piano (10’)
Étude d'un prélude X – Second String Quartet (ca. 32’)
Étude d'un prélude XI – four28, for solo piano (22’15”)
Featured Performances
Nach-Fragen—Annette Dasch in Vienna, Amsterdam and Dortmund
The renowned German soprano Annette Dasch (The Countess at the Met 2009, Elsa at Bayreuth 2010) and the Konzerthaus-Dortmund commissioned Mr. Beaudoin to compose a large song-cycle for voice and piano based on texts by the eminent East German author Christa Wolf. The resulting work, entitled Nach-Fragen, was premiered by Annette Dasch and pianist Wolfram Rieger at the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the Konzerthaus-Dortmund in March 2009.
Mr. Beaudoin’s song cycle, titled Nach-Fragen (which loosely translates as “The Inquiries”), is a setting of prose passages adapted by the composer from Wolf’s 1968 novel Nachdenken über Christa T. The 17-song cycle is organized into three sections, and is punctuated by three settings of the epigraph of Wolf’s novel: “Was ist das: Dieses Zu-sich-selber-Kommen des Menschen?” (What is it: this coming-to-oneself?). Both the text and the music deal directly with unanswered questions – regarding time, identity and society.
Nach-Fragen is dedicated to Annette Dasch, and the fabric of the work is woven with musical versions of her name. The work received glowing reviews during its première performances.
