Olympic Arts Contemporary Music Festival; Stockhausen: "Sternklang--Parkmusic for Five Groups"; Part 1

<v Speaker>The Olympic Arts Festival of the 23rd Olympiad, Los Angeles, 1984. <v Speaker>Le Festival Olympique des Artes, de la 23eme Olympiad, Los <v Speaker>Angeles, 1984. <v Speaker>La festival Olympica de las Artes, de la 23o <v Speaker>Olimpiáda, Los Angeles, <v Speaker>1984. <v Speaker>Los Angeles ne kidu sin kewl yaku hockey you yeomen <v Speaker>no dialers you SANCHI. <v Speaker>Gordon Chi-Chi no gages side. <v Speaker>These broadcasts are produced by KUSC, the University of Southern California, <v Speaker>Los Angeles, to the support of the Times Mirror Company, the festival's official <v Speaker>sponsor. The Olympic Arts Festival, Robert J. <v Speaker>Fitzpatrick, director, is a production of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee. <v Rich Capparela>I'm Rich Capparela speaking to you from Veterans Memorial Park in Sylmar, California,

<v Rich Capparela>site of the first concert in the series of six, which make up the Olympic Arts <v Rich Capparela>Contemporary Music Festival. <v Rich Capparela>Tonight, a single work lasting some three hours. <v Rich Capparela>Sternklang by Karlheinz Stockhausen. <v Rich Capparela>In its first United States performance. <v Rich Capparela>Sternklang will be presented in its entirety without interruption due to its <v Rich Capparela>unusual nature. It's as much a sacred theater piece as music. <v Rich Capparela>The producer wishes to provide our listeners with as much information about the <v Rich Capparela>presentation of Sternklang as possible before the concert begins. <v Rich Capparela>It takes place outdoors in the round in a park among tall pine <v Rich Capparela>and oak trees. It's best appreciated as Stockhausen intended, with the listener <v Rich Capparela>strolling among the various performance platforms. <v Rich Capparela>Many members of tonight's audience have brought picnic dinners to enjoy in the rolling <v Rich Capparela>hills of Veterans Park. <v Rich Capparela>Sternklang was commissioned by the Sender Freies Berlin and was first performed <v Rich Capparela>on the 5th of June 1971 in the English Garden near the Academy of the Arts <v Rich Capparela>in Berlin, with the composer as sound director.

<v Rich Capparela>Strenklang or Star Sound is subtitled Park Music for Five <v Rich Capparela>Groups. These five groups are as far apart from each other as possible. <v Rich Capparela>Writing from ?Kerpen?, Germany in May of 1971, shortly before the premiere, <v Rich Capparela>Stockhausen provided his own description. <v Rich Capparela>All singers and players are individually amplified over loudspeakers, <v Rich Capparela>musical messengers or sound runners, transport musical models from <v Rich Capparela>one group to another, where the receiving group then integrates the model into their <v Rich Capparela>musical material. <v Rich Capparela>At 10 different moments, a centrally positioned percussionist or signal man <v Rich Capparela>gives common tempos for all, and so all groups are synchronized. <v Rich Capparela>Stern Klong is based on five harmonic chords, each with eight notes tuned <v Rich Capparela>in the Natural Overtone series. <v Rich Capparela>All chords have one note in common. <v Rich Capparela>At times, all groups have the same chord. <v Rich Capparela>Other times each has a different chord. <v Rich Capparela>The star sound fluctuates among these various combinations. <v Rich Capparela>All of the musical models are related either by rhythm, tone, color or

<v Rich Capparela>interval to the classical star constellations. <v Rich Capparela>On a clear night such as tonight, Constellation's can be read directly <v Rich Capparela>from the sky and integrated as musical figures. <v Rich Capparela>In other words, the sky becomes a musical score and the sky is darkening <v Rich Capparela>right now. <v Rich Capparela>Our producer Peter Rutenberg attended the first rehearsal onsite a week ago. <v Speaker>All Sternklang musicians at the tam-tam please. Okay? All musicians up at the tam-tam. <v Speaker>[indistict chatter]. <v Speaker>[music grows louder] <v Rich Capparela>Peter Rutenberg spoke with music director Stephen (Lucky) Mosko, about Sternklang.

<v Peter Rutenberg>What does it mean in the case of this particular piece, in this performance to be <v Peter Rutenberg>music director? How is that different from any other thing that you might direct? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Well, this isn't a conducted piece in any way. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>It runs by itself once it starts. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>My role has been the preparation of the piece, making sure on one level that they learn <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>the music properly. But there have been a great many decisions because it's very much a <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>music theater piece. So, uh, the decisions not only of players placement <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>of stages, choosing the right park, ordering the fragments, uh, entrance, exit, <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>clothing, how high the scaffolding is, how the stage platforms are built, <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>all of that's in my role at this stage. <v Peter Rutenberg>So it's almost a dramatic director in a lot of ways? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Yeah, very much so. I wouldn't. You can't really separate music from this piece, from the <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>other aspects. I mean, how- it- you can tell already as the piece begins <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>that the visual aspects of it are as important as any of the oral ones and, uh,

<v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>you can't really separate them. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>So if it doesn't look properly, it won't sound proper. <v Peter Rutenberg>What are some of the things that have gone into the preparation of this piece and an <v Peter Rutenberg>overall scale that's been taking place over quite a bit of time? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>You know, we've been rehearsing. This is our 15th week of rehearsal. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>I think independently there've been well over a hundred rehearsals between the different <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>groups as the piece now. We're having 12 rehearsals with everyone together, but each <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>group has met since the beginning of April on their own up to five to six days a week, <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>usually for three or four hours each time. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>It meant procuring a synthesizer for every single person, there 18 synthesizers <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>here, each built by Robert Mook. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Personally, he got very involved with this project just recently and he made the <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>synthesizers. There five keyboard synthesizers built by him and as well as the <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>20 foot pedals and 20 power supplies, etc. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Uh. There's what, well over a mile of audio <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>cable running here, there's several miles of electric cable. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Uh, what, 10 towers? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>[chuckles].

<v Peter Rutenberg>It's a big job. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Yeah. The preparation started in November. <v Peter Rutenberg>What- what did you have to do to prepare, uh, to learn the score <v Peter Rutenberg>in this piece? That is totally unique from any other thing that you've done. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Well, this piece, like many of Stockhausen's pieces, is like a very elaborate <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>kit for making a piece. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>So you have to make the decisions about where things go and how they fit together. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And who would run when and who would do one. Uh, The kind <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>of music- The musical demands he puts on the players are things that no one's ever done <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>before. Namely, it's like only singing one note, but with the vowels that you sing, <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>isolate- isolating exact overtones from the fundamental <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>pitch. So you're hearing the melody really made of only one note. <v Peter Rutenberg>Is that what we're hearing now? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>You're just beginning to. Yes, it's just started. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And what all the synthesizers do is enable the [clears throat] the players of instruments <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>to imitate vowel sounds with foot pedals. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>The foot- the filtering system is designed, very much like valve format, so that the <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>position of the foot pedal corresponds to like the mouth shape in an "E" or an "I".

<v Peter Rutenberg>I'm sure that there is an overall structure to the score. <v Peter Rutenberg>Uh, Is that something that is consistent or it obviously changes from performance to <v Peter Rutenberg>performance, but is it something that is a reliable form or is it totally different from <v Peter Rutenberg>performance to performance? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>No, it would be quite recognizable. There's- the piece is in 40 main sections. <v Peter Rutenberg>40? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>40. And 10 of those are predetermined exactly where they begin. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And everyone in the park performs them collectively so that every performance <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>you would hear of the piece, you would hear those 10 models placed over the period <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>of time. Also, there are nine grand pauses placed in the score. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>You know very carefully by Stockhausen. <v Peter Rutenberg>What is the significance of those pauses? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>I thin- well, they, uh. They're really sections in terms of formal sections of the piece. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>One of the forms, the Stockhausen works with a lot. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Up until about the mid 70s is what you call the Fibonacci Numbers series, which is <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>one plus one and one and one is two and two and one is three and <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>three into his five and five and three is eight.

<v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And if you go from the back of the piece toward the middle, there's one section and one <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>section, then two sections, then three and five and then eight. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And if you go from the beginning of the piece, there's two then four, then six, then <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>eight. So you have these sort of converging numerical cycles on each other. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>But what it really does beyond the- the form of construction is it means <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>that as the grand pauses get more numerous towards the end, it sort of thins it out more <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>and more and makes it more and more coherent in a certain kind of way. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Every time there's a grand pause, well, let- let me backtrack a second. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>There's five different chords that can be played at any time in the piece. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>They're related to each other, but they're all different chords. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And at any one time in the piece, you can have all five at once of all five groups are <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>playing. But sometimes in the piece there's only one chord. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And this is very much like in tonal music, a real resonance and pulling together. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And every time there's a grand pause, all the groups singing the same chord at the same <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>time. So as the piece gets further and further in with these smaller sections, <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>more and more it focuses into the same harmony.

<v Peter Rutenberg>There's a lot happening right now in the park. <v Peter Rutenberg>I wonder if facing the stage that you're facing, and we'll call that West, if you could <v Peter Rutenberg>sort of describe, uh, as best you can, what's happening at each stage and how <v Peter Rutenberg>it's different from the other stages? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Well, each group has primarily six different kinds of material they work <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>with. I chose the order of that material and how it will go through the piece. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And in a sense, this is like an exposition of a symphony, at this stage. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>You're hearing the different material from each group more or less revealing itself, uh, <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>so that the group, the far group from us right now, we'll be going through all six of <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>its models within about the next 20 minutes or so. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And the same with the other groups. And then they'll start repeating a lot in different <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>ways. So they become like motives that you recognize and like familiar friends <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>that you hear. So this stage of the piece, they're all presenting the material for the <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>first time. And then in the middle part of the piece, once you've begun to be aware <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>of all the material, it's much more like a development section.

<v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>There's a long period that's very meditative where there's not a great deal of dramatic <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>change. And then after that long section, again, it comes back to the smaller and smaller <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>sections, which dramatically become more and more focused. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>But what's happening now is each group essentially is presenting the musical material <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>they're going to use for the whole piece. It reminds me a lot of Wagnerian opera with <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>leitmotifs. You know, where each character is associated with a tune? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>In this case, this is all related to constellations in the sky. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Each constellation in the piece and there are what? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Uh, about 45 that he uses and each has its own little tune and <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>rhythm associated with it and pitches. <v Peter Rutenberg>How does he arrive at those, do you know? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>I don't know. But he says in the score that either the pitches or the rhythm is somehow <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>related to the constellation. <v Peter Rutenberg>You mean the way it looks in the sky? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>In some cases, yes. In other ways, I think it's more of a mystic cosmic notion of <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Stockhausen's. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Now, what happened just now is you heard that signal happen, which came from the first <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>group that was finished with their material. They just did two boxes. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And now group one, which is at the far side of the park, will send a runner and that

<v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>runner will take one of Group 1's fragments and take it to each of the other groups. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>So that gradually you'll get a very much, like a, traditional canon except over three <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>football fields, because that runner, because of the space, will arrive at each group at <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>a different time. And because of running and everything, it- the tempo will change <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>slightly. So as it spreads through the park, you'll get this large <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>cannon beginning. This is also the way the piece almost ends the next to last box, <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>everything stops again, and the runner also from that same group runs around the park. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Now, in this case, she's going to be singing the model based on Gemini. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And I chose that model because we are in Gemini now and I thought it would be appropriate <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>for the opening of the piece. And we end the piece with Leo because that's Stockhausen's <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>constellation, the sign of his birth. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>It's easy to get bogged down in details and lose track of the piece because there's so <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>much going on in a way. <v Peter Rutenberg>How have you kept track of the- of the overall of the gestalt? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Part of it was that- the fact I been a lot of years studying Stockhausen's music and <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>teaching it and performing it. And one thing I've learned about Stockhausen is that a <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>piece like this, you have to know all of the rules before you can understand any of them.

<v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And that really means, I guess it was about four weeks of just reading it almost daily <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>and almost memorizing all of the things going on in the piece so I could arrive at, uh, <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>more or less a scheme of teaching everyone how to think about the piece. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And then what I did was I took one person from each group and made a- a- <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>a model group and we all performed the piece together in rehearsals <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>and arrived at all the questions we had. And I would go home and think about the <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>questions and arrive at a solution. And then each of those people went out and taught <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>their own group. But most of the piece. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>The more you do it, the more it answers those questions. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>One thing that you have to realize with this piece, which you can experience much more in <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>the park, but it's- it's true with the second you hear it. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Is it's basically a sacred piece. It really is a, uh, oratorio. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>That's almost a staged oratorio. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And all- it's not a religious piece in the sense of Catholic, Jewish, Islamic. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>It's a, there's- you'll hear later on there's a prayer in the piece which everyone <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>recites in unison. And it's a prayer about God being the wholeness and the galaxy as

<v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>being his arms and legs and the people and the universe being his molecules. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>So it's the feeling of the piece is really a kind of connection with a <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>very kind of universal metaphysics. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And I don't think you can hear the piece in any other way as you begin to <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>realize the power of the harmonies and the way he set up the whole piece. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>But I think that's in one way where it might be the most misunderstood, it- it, although <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>it has many of the trappings of the modern avant-garde, it's essentially, I think, a <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>very sacred piece. <v Peter Rutenberg>Do you think that the performers, uh, sort of attain a certain meditative <v Peter Rutenberg>level when they're in the performance of this? Is the music itself conducive to creating <v Peter Rutenberg>that in musicians as opposed to, uh, say playing a- a Bach and ?Benchen? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>In- It is in the same way that if you perform a Bach or ?Torio? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>a religious one with the right feeling, it is, you know, I don't think that you ever <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>hear a good performance of a- a Bach mass unless there's a certain belief in <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>what the people are singing. There was a great thing that happened the other night.

<v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>There's a signal to sometimes go through the whole park that signals when something's <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>over. And they were sort of fooling around with it, and it was one of the last things we <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>were getting musically to sound very good. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And one of the players stood up and said, if- if you're really trying to signal <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>someone from outer space, wouldn't you want to present absolutely the most beautiful, <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>perfect thing you could for them? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>You wouldn't-- you wouldn't do it in jest, would you? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>You would do it- and this its just a simple member of the group. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And ever since then, the signals of him, you know, very intense and very perfect. <v Peter Rutenberg>What's this about outer space and signals? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Well, the piece is dedicated to the day that aliens arrive <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>from outer space. It says so in the score. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>That's the sacred quality of the piece. It's a cosmic notion that there's a whole <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>universe that somehow connected. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And the piece is a kind of, uh, let's say, prelude to the arrival <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>of people from outer space. <v Peter Rutenberg>What's happening now in the park? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Well, this Gemini model that the person is just running is starting to spread through the <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>park and you're hanging in different sequences.

<v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And each of the models has, uh, an alternative ending you <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>can go to. And that's why you hear ?kastor and Pollocks? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko> being shouted occasionally. It- it allows the players now and then to skip to this other <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>fragment that's related. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And so you're hearing it spread through the park and then gradually the players will <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>independently proceed on to their next models and then after about <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>four more boxes, or four more models. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>One of the groups, the first group finished will give a signal and that signal will <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>gradually spread through the park. And as each group finishes, they'll all stop. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And then when everything stops, there'll be another grand pause. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And then for the first time in the piece, the percussionist will come in with the signal, <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>and for the first time in the whole piece, everyone does the same thing. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And in this case its the prayer. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And as soon as the prayer is over, there is- they all sing the same thing in unison. <v Peter Rutenberg>We're outside and the sun is just about gone down. <v Peter Rutenberg>Uh, the mosquitoes are out in full force. <v Peter Rutenberg>I'm wondering weather must have been a major concern in- in the planning of this piece.

<v Peter Rutenberg>Uh, do you have any thoughts about how this might affect and what kind of requirements, <v Peter Rutenberg>what would the ideal weather situation be for performers of Sternklang? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>I- Well, one- one of the first places we were looking at was Pepperdine in Malibu, <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>because it seems such a gorgeous setting. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>You know, that long plain near the ocean. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And then I remembered that June is often very foggy and cold, and <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>it seemed like that would be very un-ideal because you couldn't be comfortable outdoors <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>at night. Ideally, it should be a clear night where you can really see the stars and feel <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>a connection between the ground, the trees, the stars, the groups, the music. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>We chose this spot because its, not only is it the nicest park we found by far, but also <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>the elevation is higher. It's about fifteen hundred feet. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>So that if there is a fog, we're a little bit higher in elevation. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>If it's smoggy we're a little bit higher up than that, so that there's a much better <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>chance of seeing the sky. I think ideally one wants to be very comfortable, one should be <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>able to lie on the grass and look at the stars, wander through the piece, sit around in <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>any place and see it, so a cold, rainy night- night isn't ideal.

<v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>A night like this seems to me, quite ideal. <v Peter Rutenberg>You must have had intermittent goals along the way, uh, and probably some <v Peter Rutenberg>concept of a major end goal. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Yes. <v Peter Rutenberg>How would you assess, uh, where you are in that process of achieving that goal? <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>Well, if you don't tell the players, I think we're doing fantastic, uh. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>There's an incredible feeling of spirit and energy and intensity and concentration now. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>And I never dreamed we would get to this stage. <v Stephen (Lucky) Mosko>I really, I feel really proud about where we are. <v Rich Capparela>A conversation <v Rich Capparela>recorded last week during the first onsite rehearsal for Sternklang, <v Rich Capparela>musical director Stephen Mosko speaking with KUSC's Peter Ruttenberg. <v Rich Capparela>It's just about dusk here in Veterans Memorial Park in Sylmar, California, where in just <v Rich Capparela>a few moments we'll hear a complete uninterrupted performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen's <v Rich Capparela>Sternklang, the first performance in this country. <v Rich Capparela>Sternklang was previously performed at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972,

<v Rich Capparela>at the Festival of Arts in Shiraz, Persia in 1974, and again in Paris <v Rich Capparela>in 1975. <v Rich Capparela>A reminder that this work lasts about three hours and will be broadcast without <v Rich Capparela>interruption. You're listening to the first of six concerts from the Olympic Arts <v Rich Capparela>Contemporary Music Festival presented by the California Institute of the Arts. <v Rich Capparela>A Performance of Sternklang by Karlheinz Stockhausen. <v Rich Capparela>The sky now is almost dark, and the group of 21 musicians and torchbearers <v Rich Capparela>are gathering at the South East Stage area. <v Rich Capparela>They're lighting torches right now and departing for the other four stages. <v Rich Capparela>The bell tolling signals the beginning of this performance. <v Rich Capparela>Here is Sternklang by Karlheinz Stockhausen. <v Speaker>[bells toll and music begins]