Performing both nationally and internationally Elektra received critical acclaim as a ground breaking, exciting and always accessible voice in the Australian contemporary music scene. Performance projects Crivici devised, directed and composed for the Elektra String Quartet have included:
- Interface (quartet, sax, video and computer, 1994)
- Like Waves on an Ocean (quartet, didjeridu, percussion, multimedia, 1996)
- Luminous (concert series I, II and III, for quartet, sax, didjeridu, percussion and multimedia, 1997)
- Dreaming (quartet and sampler, didjeridu, percussion and on-stage computer-driven multimedia, 1998)
- Interstellar Song Cycle (soprano, quartet and sampler, didjeridu, percussion and on-stage computer-driven multimedia with video-1999)
- The Goddess Returns – Voice(s) [Alto with looping device], string quartet and percussion, 2001.
So it is that an ensemble like Elektra can fall between the shop shelves, radio programs, critics and even between venues. …. This quartet, under the musical direction of Romano Crivici, dares to be different in many ways. It uses amplification and electronics, it encompasses improvisation from within the ensemble and from guests, and it predominantly –on this night entirely- plays the compositions of Crivici.
The longest piece presented was Gregorian Funk, which began with a highly-charged introduction from cellist Marcus Hartstein, leading to a genuine sense of groove as the ensemble strutted its way through Crivici’s funky riffs.”
John Shand -Sydney Morning Herald, 18th June, 1997
“Hardware” (2001)
Hardware is a piece that evolved over time, and was, in some senses a defining work of Elektra; I mean, it was hard, fast, and even when un-amplified and without effects, very ‘in your face’; a form of up-tempo, sonic brutality, which, when I wrote it I made sure gave us opportunities to improvise and “let-our-hair/strings down” and play around with over-the-top effects (our instruments went through electric guitar effects-boards and a looping device). As a composer I realised this piece (along with Gregorian Funk, Cosmic Dust, The Rolling Force and others) wasn’t likely to be played, (or even able to be played) by any other group in the country, and, well, seriously any of the other “let’s pretend to be hip-wankers and appeal to the whichever demographic/age-bracket was currently in vogue in the contemporary classical string quartet scene. Well, there you go, one can’t do every ‘thing’, but we did our own. (Sadly the camera in this clip didn’t catch Rudi doing his viola solo, which in one review was described as “a lawn-mower in heat”.)
Elektra: Jacob Plooij, the brothers Crivici and Emma Luxton (Cello).
“…a sampler…multi-layered textures of rhythm and sounds,…moving between tranquillity and dynamic, powerful playing…they mesmerised the entire audience.
New Music Festival: Wurzburg, Germany.
Der Main Post
“I Want it Now”
(composed shortly before tea-time, 28/6/98)
[This clip certainly confused the audience when we played it at a live multi-media concert event, (Interplanetary Dreaming) in 1998, featuring as it does Rudi on guitar, Romano on bass and Wilks on drums, (and with editing) superimposed on the full quartet as the ‘backing tracks”. No one in the audience recognised us!
Why did we do it!!?? Was it to challenge the idea that string playing nerds can only do backing tracks for those special nubile, hyper-sexual young people/products of the commercial pop world, who manifest such lasting relevance (6 months to a couple of years or so); -or were we just bored with doing straight quartet? Maybe it was only a desperate gesture by a group going through a collective mid-life crisis, God only knows.
But then again, it may well be that creativity really know no boundaries, certainly not the bullshit categories that industry and academia alike find so reassuring, (the concert also featured a critically existential and spiritually oriented rap-number (A Gentle Rain of Tears), but that is another story….) [isn’t it weird how one ‘discovers’, and re-creates/creates ones history in an ever-changing perspective in the process of researching it; -I suppose you keep doing it till you drop ….]
Elektra: Mirka Rozmus, the brothers Crivici and Marcus Hartstein (cello); Inner Voices: Andrew Wilkes (drums) and the brothers Crivici.
Sydney Morning Herald.
“An original blend of ancient and contemporary sounds and technologies…the audience was spellbound.”
Mar del Plata, Argentina
El Capital, 1999
“…it’s a blend that seems to be working, as the second Elektra concert filled the Eugene Goosens hall to capacity. It’s a modest feat perhaps given the 300 seat capacity but, other than the percussion group Synergy- it’s still well beyond most contemporary music ensembles”
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