Erik Satie Centenary Concert

Erik Satie was one of the late 19th and early 20th Century’s most innovative and enigmatic classical composers. Known for his eccentricity and the famous ‘Gymnopédies’, recognition of Satie’s diverse and rich compositional repertoire significantly increased in the decades after his death.

Music and Media staff and students will be joined by celebrated Satie expert Robert Orledge, who will perform Satie’s piano accompaniment soundtrack ‘Cinema’ to René Clair’s 1924 film ‘Entr'acte’. This experimental film, featuring Satie himself as well as artists Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and others, has recently been restored and will be a highlight of the concert. Other works will include a diverse selection of Satie’s music for piano solo and 4-hands, alongside works for voice(s), organ as well as violin. The concert will conclude with an experimental multi-keyboard transformation of Satie’s most infamous work, ‘Vexations’, which may (or may not) be repeated 840 times –as per the composer’s instructions– in new and unexpected ways. The musical repertoire will interspersed with selected readings from Satie’s amusing and sometimes moving texts and letters.