String Quartet No.1: December
for string quartet with live electronics (2011)
premiered by the JACK Quartet at CCRMA, October 20, 2011
Christopher Otto, first violin
Ari Streisfeld, second violin
John Pickford Richards, viola
Kevin McFarland, cello
Turgut Erçetin, electronics
score published by Edition Gravis
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Written for string quartet and live electronics, December engages with the virtual, not as the “non-real,” but as an embodied space-in-the-making that emerges as a site of resistance, which accounts for the erased as well as the not-known within what preconditions the political-now as the “real”.
Live electronics activate feedback through over the course of the piece to either saturate or filter certain partials of the resulting spectra, which, together with the signals propagating through the bodies of the instruments as well as the fine-tuned speakers, color the properties of reflection and resonance of the performance space, and portrays simultaneous sonic-temporal images that emerge, articulate, and transform the physical space.
Facing each other, the audience is divided into two groups, and invited to participate in the collective auditory happenings that unfold, while the audience as well as the performers respond to the inner spaces emerging from within.
December is dedicated to the left-wing political prisoners who lost their lives on December 19, 2000 during the so-called "Operation Back to Life" (Hayata Dönüş Operasyonu, in Turkish). The Turkish government carried out this military-grade operation in order to end the prison resistance movement and the ongoing hunger strikes, during which the prisoners demanded that the shift towards a new cell system should stop. Known as the F-Type, this cell system is based on complete isolation of political prisoners. During this extremely brutal and widespread operation, more than 30 prisoners were killed, some of whom were burned alive. Following the operation, 1000 political prisoners were transferred to F-type cells. According to the official reports, more than 400 people, who have since been released, have been suffering from ongoing injuries, both mental and physical. Even today, the government denies responsibility for the casualties. Furthermore, some of the officers involved in the operation have been promoted to higher official ranks.
©Turgut Erçetin 2010-2025 (All rights reserved).
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Audio (SoundCloud)
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"Turgut Erçetin. Komponierte Akustik," by Fabian Czolbe (Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD)
"Yaylılar İçin Hayata Dönüş Operasyonu" (Radikal 2011, in Turkish)
"Turgut Erçetin – String Quartet No.1 December," by Ben Davis (in English).
"Sonar Quartet bij Gaudeamus: verklanken van ruimte," by Robert Muis (in Dutch).
"Sweet Thunder review: intriguing electro-acoustic music," by Joshua Kosman (in English).
