Today’s Four/Ten Media video premiere features Hub New Music performing Pascal Le Boeuf’s Media Control (2017) for flute, clarinet, violin, and cello.
Here’s what Pascal had to say about the piece:
In reaction to the 2016 election, I found catharsis in watching Noam Chomsky interviews connected to a book he published in 2002 called Media Control. According to Chomsky, the mass media is the primary vehicle for delivering propaganda in the United States. The title Media Control is both a nod to Chomsky’s ideas and a critique of post-truth culture. The musical content was developed through the intuitive expansion of process-oriented approaches to composition, and the structure is derived from the use of themes to represent ideas and politicians in an abstract story.
About Hub New Music
Counted among “Boston’s most innovative ensembles” by WBUR, Hub New Music is a mixed quartet forging new pathways in 21st century repertoire. Through its creative programming and ambitious commissioning projects, the ensemble of “intrepids” (WQXR) celebrates the fluidity and diversity of today’s classical music landscape. Its performances have been described as “gobsmacking” (Cleveland Classical) and offer audiences the opportunity to “go, listen, and be changed” (Boston Globe).
Highlights for the 2019-20 season include a performance of a new work by Hannah Lash presented by Seattle Symphony in its new chamber music venue Octave9; concerts with Taos Chamber Music Group (New Mexico), Ashmont Hill Chamber Music (Boston), and Newfields (Indianapolis); residencies at the universities of Texas (Austin) and Hawaii; and season-long partnerships with the Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA) and Celebrity Series of Boston. Hub will also premiere works by Takuma Itoh, Michael Ippolito, and an evening-length song cycle by Oracle Hysterical. The season marks the release its debut recording, Soul House; and a new recording with the shakuhachi player Kojiro Umezaki (Silk Road Ensemble).
About Pascal Le Boeuf
Described as “sleek, new” and “hyper-fluent” by the New York Times, Pascal Le Boeuf is a Grammy nominated composer, pianist, and producer whose works range from modern improvised music to cross-breeding classical with production-based technology. He is widely recognized for his polyrhythmic approach to chamber music and hybridization of disparate idioms.
Pascal’s latest project imaginist, is a full-length album collaboration between the JACK Quartet and the Le Boeuf Brothers Quintet (co-led by Remy Le Boeuf). The 9-piece hybridized chamber ensemble was praised by the New Yorker for “clearing their own path, mixing the solid swing of the jazz tradition with hip-hop, indie rock, and the complex techniques of classical modernism”. Additional recent projects include “Alpha” recorded by cellist Nick Photinos (Eighth Blackbird) on New Amsterdam Records, “GIRLS” recorded by the flute/piano duo RighteousGIRLS on New Focus Recordings, “Transition Behavior” recorded by the Shattered Glass String Orchestra, and “Empty Promise” an award-winning short film in collaboration with Four/Ten Media, Goldfeather and Robby Bowen.