The MTO performing Mikrophonie I, part of Modified Stockhausen, mac Birmingham, 20th August 2012. Defying request, Pete Ashton photographs the performance. We are grateful. via brianduffyhasabigbrain.

The Modified Toy Orchestra explore the hidden potential and surplus value latent in redundant technology; a process of creating sophisticated new electronic instruments from abandoned children’s toys. They have been at the forefront of a worldwide underground movement known as circuit-bending.

In this evening’s programe at mac, Birmingham, the MTO create 3 interpretations of Stockhausen’s music, focus on specific areas of  the scores;

The first piece, Spiral, was originally written as a solo piece for short wave radio. Here it is reinterpreted with 3 players imitating and responding to the radio signals.

In composing the second piece, Mikrophonie I, Stockhausen was fascinated with exploring close miking and filtering in order to hear new sounds from the tam-tam. There is a commonality of approach with The Modified Toy Orchestra, who are used to revealing previously hidden worlds of sound from their unorthodox instruments. In Mikrophonie I they take this one-step further by using transducers alongside conventional microphones to expose the microsounds of the tam-tam, like a sonic microscope.

The final piece Cosmic Pulses, was composed with 24 melodic perameters in 8 different tempos and 8 different pitches. Originally called a tape piece, Stockhausen composed this on a computer. The MTO chose to apply the principle of  8 & 8 with 24 arbitrary free-tunings and interprete them back onto tape. Only the opening phrase of the score is used and the remainder are variations composed using a Casio keyboard.

Modified Stockhausen is performed as part of the Festival of Light (www.stockhausenbirmingham.co.uk) culminating in the world premiere of Mittwoch Aus Licht by Birmingham Opera.

Yesterday the MTO took possession of a giant Tam-Tam, courtesy of the BCMG, in preparation for Modified Stockhausen, a concert celebrating the legacy and impact of the German composer in contemporary sound-making. Wrestling the Tam-Tam out of it’s storage hole in the basement of Symphony Hall was no mean feat. It proved too big for the first van (not thankfully the second), and whilst manipulating it into the modest environs of the MTO’s rehearsal space across town the giant disk showed its mettle by bouncing off my face and giving me a black eye. Brian, Dazz and Loz will now work up their chosen pieces – Spiral, Mikrophonie (featuring the Tam-Tam) and Cosmic Pulses – by utilising the technologies appropriate to a treatment by the Modified Toy Orchestra.

I was first introduced to the music of Stockhausen in a Sixth Form ‘General Studies’ class in 1983. A dozen or so of us were bussed down to the neighbouring Bartley Green Girls’ School (later Hillcrest) and given the opportunity to play LPs to, importantly, a small group of unknown, nerdish girls from the host school. Teen-frot Prog in lurid gatefold sleeves, Krautrock, Electro-poseur musique and C20th classical Americana all had their moment, but it was the playing of Stockhausen’s Kontakte that most stays in the memory. The record had clearly been gathering dust in the back of a music-room cupboard and it seriously divided opinion when it was put on the turntable. Rick Chew was already clued-up with the oeuvre (of course), and Komi Fawkes had experimented with what he called his ‘Ring Modulator’. But until then ‘musique concrete’ was not something I had encountered on Radio 1, nor in my dad’s record collection. Listening to Kontakte I became totally immersed in this sound world, “as if it bombarded me from all angles“. This phrase was repeated back to me many times by a couple of skeptics who found my animated response surprisingly comical, but the truth is it left quite an impression on me.

This month Karlheinz Stockhausen’s music returns to Birmingham for what will be a landmark event. Birmingham Opera will perform the premiere of Mittwoch Aus Licht, and there are a series of accompanying events in support of this, under the banner of Festival of Light, featuring a symposium, talks and performances. The Modified Toy Orchestra (as trio) will be playing on monday 20th August alongside Raffertie and Ostrich Box. It’s a one-off and is not to be missed.

Link to Modified Stockhausen, MAC, Birmingham. (programme starts with a talk by Dick Witts, entitled ‘Without Wires at The Speed of Light: How to understand, or misunderstand, Stockhausen’, 6.30pm).