Der Komponist Claudio Calmens interpretiert mit der Gitarre Musik, die zwar von anderen Komponisten geschrieben, aber von ihm zu seiner Eigenen transformiert wird. Diese Musik, die auf der Oberfläche so schlicht erscheint, verbirgt im Tiefen jedoch eine Reihe von unmöglichen Konstellationen, die enormen Vorbereitungszeit und Geschicklichkeit benötigen. Von dem nordamerikanischen Komponistenkollektiv Frog Peak Music unterstützt, spezialisiert sich Calmens nach intensivem Studium auf algorithmische Kompositionen, Zufallsprinzipien und Mikrotonalität. Unendliche Musik von untastbarer Feinheit, liebenswürdiger und graziöser Eleganz.

Claudio Calmens, Born in Bahía Blanca on 15 December 1962, Calmens is a tertiary-level teacher of guitar after graduation from the Gilardo Gilardi Provincial Conservatory and is also an attorney at law through his degree from the National University at La Plata. He is presently devoting himself full time to the creation, teaching, and performance of music. Though a former student of classical guitar under the Maestro Jorge Martínez Zárate, he is currently emphasizing performance of the contemporary repertory on the electric and midi guitars. In this role as an interpreter of vanguardist works, he frequently includes in his presentation pieces within the musical-theater idiom or performs as part of chamber group. He has participated in concerts on numerous occasions in halls such as the Centro Cultural San Martín, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Asociacion Pestalozzi, Radio Municipal (e.g., Programa Electromúsica, of Ricardo Dal Farra [April, 1998]).
Since 1992 he has furthermore studied in depth contemporary compositional techniques with the aid of electronic media under the guidance of Maestro Enrique Gerardi and has benefitted greatly from his association with Graciela Peralta López as theatrical consultant. More recently Calmens has been assisted in concerts by the electronically processed speaking voice of Donald Haggerty an American-born visual artist now living here in La Plata; while the Argentine artist Susana Palomeque, under the inspiration of Calmens's music, has produced original canvasses on related themes.
Among his many presentations as soloist, the following appearances are especially noteworthy:

Radio Provincia (Programa Opus, 1986)
Teatro Serafín, Junín, Buenos Aires Province (December, 1999)
Club Universitario of La Plata (October, 1997 and at the end of 1999)
Opening concert in the XIV National Encounter of the Students of Music, Berisso, Buenos Aires Province; featuring works by Larry Polansky, Warren Burt, and Howard Skempton
Colegio de Abogados, La Plata (August, 1994 and June, 2000).

During 2001 february,he visited the United States , sponsored by the Dartmouth Dickey Endowment For International Education, and Frog Peak Music, (a composer's collective).
Larry Polansky and Warren Burt composed specially for the tour for example the follow piece wich is in the web :
http://www.emf.org/subscribers/burt/Calmens%20Guitar%20Piece.htm

He made concerts solo and duet with the Chair of the Dartmouth Music Department ,(Larry Polansky ),and two improvisation sessions with the Christian Wolff-Larry Polansky-Kui Dong's Trio.
The tour were Dartmouth College , Bates College(annual concert Alvin E. David Endowed Found), Outpost Performance, .(Albuquerque,NM), Open Space -Deep Listening Foundation(Kingston, NY)Galapagos Art Café, Brooklyn, (NYC) and Kalvos & Damian's new music Bazaar(webradio)

He currently holds the academic title of full professor of music in the Gilardo Gilardi Conservatory (in guitar and music appreciation) and at the Berisso School of Art (in chamber ensembles).
He has been member of a group of composers of contemporary music (Alternative Sonorities), he furthermore participates in their monthly cycle of performances within the environs of Buenos Aires,and has recently completed a concert tour with them to Cuba as guests of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Camagüey, where they premièred their own pieces, as well as works of others, for chamber ensembles and for orchestra.

Among Calmens's own compositions figure the following works:
"Gotas y Metal" ["Drops and Metal"] (1997) is an aleatoric sound piece consisting in metal objects (vessels) drummed on by drops of water on the live stage. The work requires a plastic dropcloth, strategically positioned microphones, and metal receptacles either empty or filled to varying degrees with water. The performance technique-largely random, though partially controlled-is based on the realization of a series of instructions given by the composer, while the aleatority is directed both before and during the moment of execution.
"El Zapallo Que Se Hizo Cosmos" ["The Pumpkin That Became Cosmos"] (1997) is a stage adaptation of the short story by Macedonio Fernández included in the novel “El Museo de la Novela de la Eterna”. A certain training is required for the narration itself-varied on the basis of moments suggested by the original text-where the voice is modified, the microphone and console utilized for vocal distortion or exaggeration (such as reverberation), and different manners of verbal expression improvised by the performer.
"Allegro Kumoi" (1997) is a homophonic work that can also be performed by a real orchestra. The title alludes to the pentatonic Japanese scale on which this piece was composed in allegro sonata form.
"Fuga 1" ["Fugue 1"], based on the structure of a neo-Baroque fugue and composed on a mixolydian scale, was designed to be played by either a string quartet or a string orchestra and was premièred in April, 2000 by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Camagüey, Cuba.(Recorded midi version in cd IRCO 321,Fondo Nacional de las Artes:”Panorama De La Música Argentina”)
"Poemus 1, 2, 3, 4, 5" ["Poemus 1, 2, 3, 4, 5"] (1997-1998) were composed for narrator and either computer or digital recording,with texts of Oliverio Girondo.
"Mi Nombre Es . . ." ["My Name Is . . ."] (1996), inspired by a passage from the novel “Microserfs” by Douglas Coupland, consists in the adaptation of a fragment of the book to the stage with the inclusion of incidental music that can be performed on the midi guitar as well as on the computer via output loudspeakers. The musical composition itself, in turn, is utilizable with other texts whose length, surrealistic atmosphere, and overall structure (bipartite: thesis and antithesis) are consistent with those characteristics of the piece.
"Entrenamiento" ["Entertainment"] (1997) is an improvisational text aimed at preparing the spectators for the telling of the story "Futilidad" ["Futility"], a necessary step for inciting the active participation of the audience envisioned for this work.
"Futilidad" ["Futility"] is a story created around a phonetic game involving a single consonant (F) which either occurs or predominates in a majority of the words of the text. The participation of the audience, as indicated in the body of the text according to manner prescribed to them in "Entertainment", is to be prompted by the performer at the appropriate points during the narration.
"Sol Freud" (1996) is a literary-musical work stemming from compositional principles of pataphysique. The literary portion arises from the utilization of the program "Sigmund Freud in CD" with an automatic system of composition, while the musical part stems from the live sequencing on two tracks prepared in the software of the sequencer Cakewalk and performed on the midi guitar. During the performance pauses should occur as prescribed in the directions.
"Atomización de tangos" ["Atomization of Tangos"] (1998) was composed by a processing in real time of well-known tango sequences by means of the software program "M".(Recorded version :cd IRCO 321,Fondo Nacional de las Artes.)
“Las Hermanas En Holanda” (1998) for narrator and Choir of Fairies. Is a story created around a phonetic game involving a single consonant (H)
“Overture Soberbia” For digital symphony orchestra. For recording and anchorman.
"Trío Circular por la Luna y por el Color" ["Circular Trio for the Moon and for Color"] for violin, cello, and piano was premièred by the Trío Gramatges,(Louis Aguirre,violin,Nilda Brizuela ,piano,And Maylin Sevila,cello) of Camagüey, Cuba on 24 August 1999 in the Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires.
"Eili" (1999) consists in four versions of the same traditional Yiddish religious melody achieved by means of composite computer processing, with the original recording consisting in the voice of the singer alone without any form of accompaniment.
“Sweet Vivi”(2000) for electric guitar + midi.
“Higer Falls”(2001) electro acoustic piece broadcasted in www.Kalvos.org

As a performer, has developed a repertory of experimental music for both the classical and electric guitars,and his voice including (among other works):
"II V I" and "34 Chords, Christian Wolff in Hanover and Royalton" were both composed by Larry Polansky at Dartmouth College in the United States. The first, dating from 1997 and given its world première for solo instrument, is a performer's improvisation piece scored on the basis of three chords which gradually but progressively modulate in their tuning; while the second work, from the year 1995, was inspired by a chorale of Morton Feldman entitled "Christian Wolff in Cambridge".
"Song 2", written for piano by Howard Skempton and transcribed for guitar by Larry Polansky, is one of the composer's miniatures-at once brief, concise, and delicate. In the original version , Skempton considered form to be the single motivating idea of the composition: without economy, music loses potency; without control per se, nothing is left. He conceived a new tonal language: here there is a continuous, direct, and simple accompaniment, which intermingles with the melody.
“Ivtoo”, by Larry Polansky, dedicated to Claudio Calmens, premiered in november 2001 , (Primer encuentro de artes múltiples y artes integradas, La Plata), “
"My Monodies #2" is a piece written by the American composer living in Australia Warren Burt In an original approach to guitar tuning, Burt achieves an octave scale of 24 quarter tones.
"Fast Random Walk Around a Microtonal Fingerboard", also by Warren Burt, is a work of three movements combining elements of performance-variable micro tonality, aleatority, and algorithmic composition.
"Canción y Danza" ["Song and Dance"] by the Spaniard Ruiz Pipó is a modal-harmonic piece for classical guitar.
"Central Guitar" by Egberto Gismonti is also for classical guitar.
“Extremos” Louis Aguirre(Cuba),1993 for classical guitar.
“La Spiral Eterna” (Leo Brouwer) for classical guitar.
"El Pesar de los Pájaros" ["The Birds' Sorrow"] by Claudio Calmens (1994) seeks to achieve a symbiosis between the dadaistic climate of its text and the sound capabilities of the midi guitar. The work was premièred in Rautenstrauch Hall of the Camping Musical Bariloche on 26 February 1994 as part of a composition workshop under the auspices of the Antorchas Foundation directed by Maestro Leo Maslíah.
"Espejos, Certeza, Cereza" ["Mirrors, Certainty, Cherry"] by Claudio Calmens (1994), premièred in the Salon de Actos of the Colegio de Abogados of La Plata on 26 September 1999, is a piece that utilizes to the maximum the hold device of the midi guitar while the composer-performer establishes a poetic-literary verbal interplay.
“O” (Ben Boretz) arranged of Mary Roberts for electric guitar.
“Open” for electric guitar.Composed by Mary Roberts.
“Gamelan Vox”(Philip Corner)for one or more electric guitars (or by the addition of electronic means).

Residence:
Calle 29 1009 (entre 53 y 54)
1900 La Plata- Argentina
telephone:+ 54 221 4514583
E.mail: calmens@netverk.com.ar

Bild © Claudio Calmens