Nicole Lizée is one of the most original compositional voices of her generation. Influenced by MTV music videos, rave culture, 1960s psychedelia and postmodern cinema, her work blurs the line between high and low art, between the ridiculous and the sublime, between classical and pop.

FILM AND MUSIC presents two of Lizée’s “études”, works that appropriate/remix popular films and overlay them with original music and live performance. Tarantino Études for solo bass flute takes various scenes from Quentin Tarantino’s films Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs, and Pulp Fiction, “glitching” the sound and image to create an effect similar to that of a hip-hop turn-table artist. The soloist performs original material over the resultant groove. In Hitchcock Études Alfred Hitchcock’s classics such as Pyscho and The Birds undergo the same treatment, this time with an ensemble of string quartet and vibraphone. These pieces are brilliant in both concept and execution, music that directly comments on and utilizes some of the most widely known pieces of pop culture and cinematic history in an altogether original and engaging way.

Oerknal contrasts these multi-disciplinary works with wholly musical pieces that take narrative – whether explicit or implicit – as their inspiration. John Zorn’s All Hallow’s Eve is a collection of three movements meant to accompany a “witch’s Sabbath” – the music is colorful and evocative, and could easily accompany an art house horror film. Matthias Krüger’s LAL (First Draft) is a reflection of the composer’s residency in Istanbul, a kind of autobiographical reminiscence; it brilliantly utilizes Turkish instruments such as the tulum (Turkish bagpipes), bendir and darbuka (traditional Turkish drums), combining them with six detuned melodicas and an accordion to create a bizarrely psychedelic soundscape.