Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Visuals.



Title : Reflection-She/Me
From : http://www.flickr.com/photos/22043902@N08/2346480038/in/pool-99598924@N00









Friday, November 21, 2008

Change of Dates

Pushing back of the dates of the renting of space to 15th - 19th Dec, due to non-availability of space( E33A ).

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Research material on the late great Mozart.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (IPA: [ˈvɔlfgaŋ amaˈdeus ˈmoːtsart], full name Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart [1] (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. His more than 600 compositions include works widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music, and he is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers. Mozart's music, like Haydn's, stands as an archetypal example of the Classical style. His works spanned the period during which that style transformed from one exemplified by the style galant to one that began to incorporate some of the contrapuntal complexities of the late Baroque, complexities against which the galant style had been a reaction. Mozart's own stylistic development closely paralleled the development of the classical style as a whole. In addition, he was a versatile composer and wrote in almost every major genre, including symphony, opera, the solo concerto, chamber music including string quartet and string quintet, and the piano sonata. While none of these genres were new, the piano concerto was almost single-handedly developed and popularized by Mozart. He also wrote a great deal of religious music, including masses; and he composed many dances, divertimenti, serenades, and other forms of light entertainment.

The central traits of the classical style can be identified in Mozart's music. Clarity, balance, and transparency are hallmarks of his work. A more simplistic notion of the delicacy of his music obscures the exceptional power of some of his finest masterpieces, such as the Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491, the Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550, and the opera Don Giovanni. Charles Rosen has written (1997): "It is only through recognizing the violence and sensuality at the center of Mozart's work that we can make a start towards a comprehension of his structures and an insight into his magnificence. In a paradoxical way, Schumann's superficial characterization of the G minor Symphony can help us to see Mozart's daemon more steadily. In all of Mozart's supreme expressions of suffering and terror, there is something shockingly voluptuous."[70] Especially during his last decade, Mozart explored chromatic harmony to a degree rare at the time.

From an early age, Mozart had a gift for imitating the music he heard. His travels provided him with a rare collection of experiences from which to create his unique compositional language.[71] In London as a child, he met J.C. Bach and heard his music. In Paris, Mannheim, and Vienna, he heard the work of composers active there, as well as the Mannheim orchestra. In Italy, he encountered the Italian overture and opera buffa, both of which were to be hugely influential on his development. Both in London and Italy, the galant style was all the rage: simple, light music, with a mania for cadencing, an emphasis on tonic, dominant, and subdominant to the exclusion of other chords, symmetrical phrases, and clearly articulated structures.[72] This style, out of which the classical style evolved, was a reaction against the complexity of late Baroque music. Some of Mozart's early symphonies are Italian overtures, with three movements running into each other; many are "homotonal" (all three movements having the same key signature, with the slow middle movement being in the relative minor). Others mimic the works of J.C. Bach, and others show the simple rounded binary forms commonly being written by composers in Vienna. One of the most recognizable features of Mozart's works is a sequence of harmonies or modes that usually leads to a cadence in the dominant or tonic key. This sequence is essentially borrowed from Baroque music's Phrygian style, especially J. S. Bach. But Mozart shifted the sequence so that the cadence ended on the stronger half, i.e., the first beat of the bar.[citation needed]

As Mozart matured, he began to incorporate some more features of Baroque styles into his music. For example, the Symphony No. 29 in A Major K. 201 uses a contrapuntal main theme in its first movement, and experimentation with irregular phrase lengths. Some of his quartets from 1773 have fugal finales, probably influenced by Haydn, who included three such finales in his recently published Opus 20 set. The influence of the Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") period in music, with its brief foreshadowing of the Romantic era to come, is evident in some of the music of both composers at that time. Mozart's Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183 is another excellent example of this style.

Over the course of his working life, Mozart switched his focus from instrumental music to operas, and back again. He wrote operas in each of the styles current in Europe: opera buffa, such as The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, or Così fan tutte; opera seria, such as Idomeneo; and Singspiel, of which Die Zauberflöte is probably the most famous example by a composer. In his later operas, he developed the use of subtle changes in instrumentation, orchestration, and tone colour to express or highlight psychological or emotional states and dramatic shifts. Here his advances in opera and instrumental composing interacted. His increasingly sophisticated use of the orchestra in the symphonies and concerti served as a resource in his operatic orchestration, and his developing subtlety in using the orchestra to psychological effect in his operas was reflected in his later non-operatic compositions.[73]
Portrait of Beethoven as a young man by Carl Traugott Riedel (1769 – 1832)

Mozart's most famous pupil was probably Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a transitional figure between Classical and Romantic eras whom the Mozarts took into their Vienna home for two years as a child during his studies.[74]

More important is the influence Mozart had on later composers through the example of his works. Following the surge in his reputation after his death, the study of works by Mozart became part of the training of every classical musician, and has been ever since. Ludwig van Beethoven, whose life overlapped with Mozart's, seems to have been particularly strongly influenced by him. Beethoven became closely acquainted with Mozart's work as a teenager (he is thought to have played Mozart's operas in the court orchestra in Bonn).[75] He traveled to Vienna in 1787 in the hope (unfulfilled) of studying with Mozart. It is thought that some of Beethoven's works have direct models in comparable works by Mozart. Beethoven also wrote cadenzas (WoO 58) to Mozart's D minor piano concerto K. 466.

A number of composers have paid homage to Mozart by writing sets of variations on his themes. Beethoven wrote four such sets (Op. 66, WoO 28, WoO 40, WoO 46). Others include Frédéric Chopin's variations for piano and orchestra on "Là ci darem la mano" from Don Giovanni (1827) and Max Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914), based on the variation theme in the piano sonata K. 331.[76] Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote his Orchestral Suite No. 4 in G "Mozartiana" (1887) in tribute to Mozart.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Meeting cum materials-sourcing .

Location : Coffeeshop opposite school then to Marsiling Industrial Area.
Date & Time : 6th November, 5pm onwards.

The team went to source for materials after school ended.
Met up at the coffee shop for a short discussion then off we head to Marsiling Industrial area to look for 'junks' which could be deemed as treasures to us.


Heaps of wooden planks and discarded furnitures.


Ideal table, we're looking for something like that, unfortunately this table belongs to one of the warehouse.


Heading inside the warehouse, cheap but old furniture could be bought at a cheap price.


The area.


Found something outside the warehouse, and after asking for permission, the nice owner gave it to us, for free! :D
A little too dusty though.


Thankyou. These 'chair/stool-lookalike' are now resting at Tosh's house.


Roaming around.


This is the kind of door we might be using for our installation.
We have to figure out how to actually attached a door to the walls we're going to use.


Doors with 'artistic' feel.


More stuffs..


Look what we've found! A very old hawker center as well as toilets!
You can't really see places like that commonly these days.
And the Nasi Padang served there is not bad as well, a rather satisfying dinner after long walks in the area.


More pictures...


Bed mattresses, chairs, gates etc..


The sun is setting.


WAREHOUSE SALE!


We might be buying the both chairs (pink&purple) as we did managed to bargain for a good price already.


Happy people.


Taking a break after exploring the 3-storey warehouse.


Heading back to collect the 'chair/stool-lookalike' ..


------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a fruitful day, knowing that we can get most items we need nearby our school, and without burning big holes in our pockets.

We are definitely going back there again for more treasure-hunting.

Now, who says meetings are always about discussions and no fun at all? :)

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Meeting 3 With Wai Leng.

Location : E33A (Location of installation)
Date & Time : 6th November, 1 PM to 1.30 PM


Our space!

We were supposed to meet up with OES personnel Anas on this day but unfortunately, he did not turn up. During this meeting we discussed about equipments we would be borrowing from the school for the construction of our installation and whether or not we could stay overnight at the premises to work on our project.

INVENTORY LIST
1 - 16 Walls ( Will be emailing Zul about it ASAP)
2 - Ladder (2 Metres)
3 - Trolley (For transportation of items such as the walls to E33A)

Other required items such as tables, chairs and bed would be sourced and supplied by the team.

We also raised the idea of staying overnight at E33A during set-up so as to ensure that we are making full use of the time we have to work on our project. Permission would be have to requested and granted by OES and the relevant personnel such as RP security would have to be informed in advanced.

If permission were to be granted for overnight stay, we would also have to request that the air-conditioning be left on for a better and more productive working environment. and not forgetting having the access card to the premise.


Photography by Ben :)