OKTOPHONIE
“Karlheinz Stockhausen…one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music.”
—The Guardian (London)
“A vivid presence on the international art circuit…[who] not only welcomes but depends on [a] collaborative embrace between artist and spectator.”
—The New Yorker on Rirkrit Tiravanija
New York Premiere
By Karlheinz Stockhausen
Environment designed by Rirkrit Tiravanija
Karlheinz Stockhausen is one of the most significant composers of modern and electronic music, influencing artists from The Beatles to Bjork, Miles Davis to Animal Collective, Frank Zappa, and more. Performed by one of his original collaborators Kathinka Pasveer, the maverick composer’s OKTOPHONIE from his opus Licht gets an exciting new life in an epic production of this monumental composition.
Acclaimed contemporary visual artist Rirkrit Tiravanija stages the work as the composer originally intended—in outer space—creating a lunar floating seating unit to fully envelop the listener in octophonic sound. Adorned in white, the audience takes a ritualistic musical journey from plunging darkness into blinding light to fully immerse themselves in the all-encompassing score and surroundings. The vastness of the Wade Thompson Drill Hall is the perfect setting to fully realize this rarely performed work that Stockhausen so boldly envisioned in its highly-anticipated New York premiere.
This production is supported, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Special thanks to the Stockhausen Foundation for Music, Kürten, Germany.
Support for Park Avenue Armory’s artistic season has been generously provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Booth Ferris Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Marc Haas Foundation, The Charles Evans Foundation, and the Isak and Rose Weinman Foundation.
Photo: Ryo Kato