This morning Ableton debuted its new documentary, featuring Hendrik Weber, aka Pantha du Prince, collaborating with The Bell Laboratory in a performance of Terry Riley‘s seminal minimal composition, In C, at London’s Barbican Theatre.
Riley’s In C, composed in 1964, consists of 53 musical phrases, to be played by any number of people on any instruments. The phrases are to be played by each musician any number of times, as long as the musicians stay within a few phrases of each other. Because of the compositional rules of the work, performances can be very different in sound an length.
Members of The Bell Laboratory play the piece on a broad range of percussion instruments. Weber uses Ableton Live on his laptop and samples and loops the percussionists’ instruments, adding his performance to the minimalist classic.
In this video, below, Weber gives an overview of the gear he uses, including a Moogerfooger, a Kaoss Pad, an Akai MPC, a synthesizer and a drum machine — and Ableton Live on his laptop:
More information about the documentary, and additional information about the performance of In C, can be found on the Ableton website.
Great mini-doc and cool arrangement of In C.
For anybody not familiar with Pantha du Prince – do check out ‘Elements of Light’
Kept reading this as TEDDY Riley and was seriously confused for about 2 minutes.
When performing these pieces, i think he has gotten some inspiration from Steve Reich and “Music for 18 Musicians”.
I made a version of In C in Ableton in 2009 — you can download it here: http://aleatoric.backporchrevolution.com/2009/01/in-c/