Work
Pierre Boulez a la discothèque
for orchestra
About
Pierre Boulez a la discothèque began life as a wry exploration of imaginary histories. I had a trashy idea of Boulez stumbling into a disco in the late 1970s, having an epiphany while on Ketamine, and emerging transformed by what he had heard and felt. It is part of a number of works I describe as historico-cultural simulacra. In the way that Stockhausen (much to his dismay) became a cult hero in the emergence of electronic dance music, I wanted to cut Boulez loose into a different cultural space. I wanted him to have a secret love affair with a different music.
The resulting work then is a sort of musical illegitimate love-child, the creation of invented misadventures at the disco. Highly rhythmic like its mother, but peppered with the micro-flamboyance that is signature to its father’s gestures.