Ramón González-Arroyo
Light matters
Light is important. Particle and wave, the substances of which light is made are airy, supple, ethereal matters. Whilst for physicists, according to their mathematical model, the vacuum is not void and there where there was nothing a tiny something might appear, with the other mathematical model, the one that regulates our everyday life, alchemists proof us that the only light emerges from certain minerals, heavy without doubt, and that there where you thought there was something, in reality there is nothing at all. Trifle matters, unimportant questions; better, though, to get used to live within the unstable.
This polysemy, this ambiguity of the title serves to colour a poetic world with which to continue my work on matters and materials, on surfaces and their spaces. Insubstantial matters, fluid, delicate, translucent; wave, grain; just reaching out for light from within sound.
The piece was commissioned by the Groupe de Recherches Musicales de Paris, and premiered in June 2010 at the Salle Olivier Messiaen de la Maison de Radio France.
Ramón González-Arroyo
Musical studies at Madrid, and then Utrecht, Den Haag and Paris. Amongst his masters one should mention L. de Pablo, C. Bernaola, W. Kaegi, G. M. Koenig and H. Vaggione. Courses and seminars on computer music ar IRCAM, GRM and ACROE/ZKM.
Collaborations on different musical research projects at different european institutions : Institute of Sonology (Holland), IRCAM (France), GMD, ZKM (Germany) or IEM (Austria). FOO, a model of environment for the composition of music with sound synthesis, designed at the ZKM of Karlsruhe, or LISTEN, an european research project embracing a relatively large number of institutions and aiming at the creation of a tool to design and compose "immersive audio augented environments", are some of his most beloved projects. At the present moment he starts a new project, The Choreography of Sound, in collaboration with G. Eckel. Exploring the relationships between the spatial and sound matter, the project will take place at the Institut für Elektronische Musik und Akustik of Graz.
His music, including electroacoustic pieces (Streams Extremes & Dreams, A Media Luna, Toiles en l'Air), mixed (De la Distance, Charybdis’ Muse & Scylla’s Bloom, Philia-Neikos) or instrumental (Clockwork, Nocturno, ‘Twixt tinged twining threads), has been played at different festivals and concert-season (Wien Modern, Berliner Inventionen, Festival Bartok, Musiques en Scène, Multiphonies, Multimediale). Since recently, attracted by he universe of installations, he has produced purely sound pieces (L'isla des Neumas) or, in collaboration with other artists, multi-disciplinary pieces (Rain-Taps, Raumfaltung), which have been presented at several european museums (KMB from Bonn, Samlung Essl from Viena, Koldo Mitxelena at San Sebastian).
