by Jena Gardner, September 8, 2011
Tonight will be my first performance of “Pli selon pli” with Pierre Boulez conducting and Barbara Hannigan singing. Every day we rehearse and the details of this piece become more clear to me.
I said in my first blog that there is something almost magical about working directly with a composer. In this case it’s two fold because Boulez is also conducting the piece. He is meticulous in his standards, saying in rehearsal that he “would not accept approximations”.
His music and his expectations create a new challenge for me. It is incredibly exhilarating to strive for these goals and even more so to accomplish them.
I am excited, of course, for the opportunity to perform Boulez’s piece tonight here in Lucerne. However, I am also interested to see how it will evolve and how my understanding of it will grow in the coming weeks on tour with Ensemble intercontemporain.