READER: PERFORMER’S KITCHEN

About the Performer’s Kitchen by Quatuor Bozzini

The Performer‘s Kitchen is a workshop-laboratory produced by Quatuor Bozzini to ensure the training of new generations of performers who wish to strengthen their abilities in new music performance. During these workshops, the participants benefit from the presence of experienced performers, both specialized in and passionate about the various repertoires of contemporary music. The Performer’s Kitchen constitutes an ideal opportunity to explore, polish and master instrumental practices arising from this music in a casual environment, while becoming familiar with the most recent æsthetic trends. Through this periodic performance residency, Quatuor Bozzini aims at making sure that present-day instrumental techniques pass from one generation to another, and that they become widespread natural practices.

3-WAY COTILLION

3-Way Cotillion is yet another piece of mine that refers to a dance-form in its title (joining Points and Waltzes, Slip Minuet, The Spit Veleta, and Stain Ballad, among others). I‘ve asserted it before but it bears repeating: all of my music is dance music; that’s because all music is dance music. The version of the cotillion I’m thinking of here is the social dance involving four couples forming a square (a forebear of the quadrille or the square dance); but mine involves only three couples – thus, a 3-way Cotillion. I do think of the ensemble as three pairs: two violins, two violas and two cellos. The members of a pair are not in sync but are more tightly knotted than the loose polyphony they weave with the other pairs. And they all quietly dance around harmonic spaces that modulate a bit more quickly than is usual in my music. “Cotillion”: from French cotillon, literally ‘petticoat dance’.  Why a cotillion is a petticoat dance is a matter of conjecture, but most theories include the suggestion that the vigour of the dance might expose the underskirt of a dancer. 3-Way Cotillion is not that kind of dance. Maybe instead I imagine one at home, hanging around, only wearing loose, comfortable underwear, swaying irregularly in reverie, dancing to a daydream of a dance.

3-Way Cotillion was written for Quatuor Bozzini (plus two) and is dedicated to them with perpetual and comprehensive thanks!

Martin Arnold