NATIONAL YOUTH ORCHESTRA OF CATALONIA: FRITZ HAUSER

How can a symphony orchestra perform a work without a score? Fritz Hauser (Basel, 1953), dubbed as “one of the best percussionists alive” by The New York Times, is an explorer of sound who cuts across the conventional categories, allowing us to distinguish between what makes a composer and what makes an improviser. Hauser rubs, scratches, manipulates and strikes objects. He activates them through contact with their sonorous texture and their resonance potential, bringing out undreamed-of harmonics and other sounds based on the instruments’ surface and the type of action applied to them. Hauser will hold a unique session with the National Youth Orchestra of Catalonia in the industrial setting of the Fabra i Coats factory: surrounded by an entire orchestra, attendees will be able to listen to two of his most important open works – Schraffur and Rundum – in symphonic form, interspersed with one of his astounding solo improvisations.