Archive Event IV – Piccola musica notturna
MouseEar
26 March 2022
The address of Looiersgracht 60 has a rich history having served as a cardboard factory, beer bottling plant, and currently as a multidisciplinary exhibition space. These myriad uses of the space have left their traces on the building, inspiring an interest in how we archive past histories and practices and how this speaks to our sustained movement forward. Stemming from Looiersgracht 60’s commitment to a dialogue surrounding preservation, the Archive Series’ events are unique, site-specific installations and performances investigating archives through performances, talks and discussions with artists and practitioners actively engaged in better understanding the past in our present.
For the fourth edition of the Archive Series, Looiersgracht 60 is excited to collaborate again with MouseEar Concerts and present Piccola musica notturna, a performance of 20th century Italian avant-garde music performed by contemporary harpsichordist, Wesley Shen, in collaboration with soprano Elisabeth Hetherington. Piccola musica notturna presents a variety of works for harpsichord and soprano by some of the leading musicians of the mid-century Italian avant-garde: Luciano Berio, Franco Donatoni, Salvatore Sciarrino, and Camilo Togni. The program will also introduce performances of two new works by contemporary Amsterdam-based composers Michele Mazzini and Boris Bezemer.
These Italian composers of the 1950s-70s, were faced with the desire to create something while still harboring the burdens of post-war memory. Their compositions during this time were developed to simultaneously transcend and confront this trauma by carefully borrowing and reflecting on the past through new and innovative translations into their present. Following the perspectives of these composers from Italy’s post war period, Archive Event IV: Piccola musica notturna, is meant to offer space to challenge notions of historical music as static or fixed and instead introduce a more fluid and transformational understanding of past compositions.
The performance will use the harpsichord, an instrument that is deeply immersed within its own musical tradition, and the elastic materiality of the voice to explore sonic processes of transformation and recontextualization in music. The performance is designed to bring out questions around the archive as preservative in nature and instead engage with the imperfections and discoveries that come from transcription and translation as a way to re-encounter the past in our variable present.
Wesley Shen is a Toronto-based pianist and harpischorist, specializing in contemporary music. Shen studied at the University of Toronto as well as the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in the Contemporary Harpsichord Master’s Programme. Shen has an on-going collaboration under the name of Ugly Pug and studied with Goska Isphording, a renowned harpsichordist and collaborator with MouseEar Concerts.
Elisabeth Hetherington is an Amsterdam-based, award-winning vocalist originally from Toronto, Canada. Hetherington trained as a soprano and specializes in the interpretation and performance of Original Pronunciation of Elizabethan English in classical music as well as more contemporary repertoires. Hetherington also practices within the field of dance and theater and has performed this combination of multidisciplinary performance and classical music across Europe. She works closely with the modern dance company, LeineRoebana and was awarded the Dutch Classical Talent Award in 2020. Hetherington studied at the University of Toronto in the Faculty of Music and received her Masters in Historical Performance at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam
MouseEar emerged from the desire of two exceptional keyboardists, Artem Belogurov and Menno van Delft, to revitalize performance traditions of the past. The focal point of MouseEar is a reimagining of the concert-going experience of the present day. The platform aims to promote the rich and diverse repertoire for historical keyboard instruments through presenting concerts, lectures and workshops given by established and young artists from around the world. MouseEar continually engages with an array of eminent composers who in turn reflect on the process of archiving through the orchestration of exceptional sound materials.
Performance: Saturday March 26, 2022 from 16:00 - 18:00.
Entrance fee is 10 EUR and seating is limited, to purchase a ticket please follow the link here: Tickets
For more information about our previous archive events, please have a look here:
Archive Event I - Imprinted Mater
Archive Event III - Clavicembalo Assimilato
Archive Event IV – Piccola musica notturna
MouseEar
26 March 2022
Last updated: 7 July 2026 4:49 PM