Robert Dick (US) – flutes (from piccolo to double bass)
Ursel Schlicht – Piano Inside-Out
Ursel Schlicht is a masterfully poetic player both inside the piano and on the keyboard. Robert Dick is known for creating revolutionary visions of the flute’s musical role and generally world renowned as the leader in contemporary music for flute. The four-movement suite The Galilean Moons was composed by Ursel Schlicht and Robert Dick for the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Mexico, when this was dedicated to Galileo Galilei.
In search of suitable musical ideas, they dealt with the four Jupiter moons Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede, whom Galileo discovered over four hundred years ago. There are hundreds of volcanoes on Io, but Europe is a small moon covered with an ice layer. With such images, they developed original sound palettes that have played a central role in their duo work for years. With the invention of his Glissando Headjoint, a headpiece that enables glissandi over a third and is now used worldwide, Robert Dick has created a major innovation for the instrument. With impressive power and virtuosity, he plays all flutes from piccolo to double bass – including the extremely rare F bass flute. Ursel Schlicht uses sounds in the piano interior, which sometimes overlap with the flute in such a way that acoustically completely unexpected sounds are created, which completely raise the expectations of a duo with flute and piano.
The CD The Galilean Moons (Nemu Records 017) is the second CD of this duo and was voted one of the best CDs of the year by New York critics. After festivals in Mexico, Alaska, Baltimore, New York and Iceland, the duo is now playing in the year of Robert Dick’s 70th birthday at the exploratorium berlin for the first time. They talk with musicologist Mathias Maschat about their work and special playing techniques, as well as about other exciting topics related to their use of improvisation.
From the liner notes on the CD:
“They have devoted themselves to stretching the sonorities and textures listeners expect from their instruments, and to sculpting fresh musical forms in which elements of formal composition and improvisation are blended. Theirs is music that looks forward and pushes toward a future in which limitations are swept away (who says you can’t bend pitches or play glissandos on the flute and piano? Watch us!), but in which the art’s purely human aspect – the exchanges and interplay that make music a conversation that goes beyond words – remain in the spotlight.” (Allan Kozinn).
https://www.robertdick-urselschlicht-duo.com
Admission: 12 / 10 / 6 Euro (normal price / reduced / Berlin-Pass)
Due to corona protection measures, the concert has to be postponed. The new date will be announced as soon as possible.
