MUSIC FORUM, Wednesday 26 January: "Shut up and play Frank Zappa" Literature House (Kverneland), 19:00 PM. Free admission and open to all.
/ 19/01/2011 / codexdeals with one of the most distinctive artists and composers of the last 40 years: Frank Zappa (1940 – 1993). Composer and artist Jono ElGrande is currently unchallenged as Norway's foremost Zappa expert and will give a nearly hour-long lecture about Zappa's extensive and breakneck musical output.
Frank Zappa, who would have been seventy today, broke most genre boundaries and cultural conventions. He mixed high and low, he was flat, advanced, popular, inscrutable and narrow – all at once.
The lecture starts with the well-known Norwegian hit Bobby Brown and moves into a more advanced and intricate universe via the sources of inspiration Varèse, Stravinsky and 50s doo-wop and R&B. We then end up in the core of his advanced working methods, including by taking a closer look at the so-called xenochrony method. Along the way we are served a number of rare and entertaining musical examples.
Welcome!
Jono El Grande is a self-taught composer and musician who recently released his fourth album Phantom Stimulance on Rune Grammofon, just one year after the avant-garde European success Neo Dada.
El Grande has been a festival composer at, among others, the Happy Days Sound Festival 2008 and is now writing music for his fifth album. Jono El Grande leads his own orchestra – Jono El Grande & His Luxury Band. He also writes for several other ensembles.
Jono El Grande became a member of the Norwegian Composers' Association in the fall of 2010.
Music Forum is the Norwegian Composers' Association and NOPA's joint professional forum with the goal of creating greater awareness and engagement around composition and related topics within music. Music Forum is free and open to everyone.