ProStudioMasters.com

"Dramatically the piece is a fusion of a Japanese Noh play with a west African legend, delivered as part incantation, part declamation, with a percussive score of glinting, pulsing rhythms and eruptive toccatas. It may not be as beguiling on disc as it was in the theatre, but it is still an utterly original experience." - The Guardian The 2013 Ruhrtriennale opened with Ensemble Musikfabrik performing and co-producing the work of one of the most original artists and musicians of the 20th century, American composer Harry Partch (1901–1974): a man who was ahead of his time when he began to engage with microtonality. He developed unusual harmonies that he employed in his music with poetic facility, rhythmic drive and unacademic wit. He not only created a highly complex pitch system but over the course of his life, also designed and built a complete ensemble of instruments, destined to realise his music, bearing idiosyncratic beauty and stage presence. The only complete and original set of these instruments in existence is held at the School of Music at the University of Washington in Seattle. As a ground-breaking precursor to further performances in Germany and Europe, Heiner Goebbels, Artistic Director of the Ruhrtriennale 2012-2014, directed the European premiere of Partch’s late masterwork, “Delusion of the Fury – A Ritual of Dream and Delusion” (1965–66) at the 2013 Ruhrtriennale. A production of Ruhrtriennale – international festival of the arts 2013. Co-produced by Ensemble Musikfabrik, Holland Festival and Lincoln Center Festival.