Silence is golden

The “Silence is Sexy” series at the AB is welcoming A Winged Victory for the Sullen, a sumptuous, contemplative collaboration between Americans Dustin O’Halloran and Adam Wiltzie. The latter lives in Brussels. He tells us the unlikely history of this project, which will be performed on stage with a 20-piece orchestra.

A Winged Victory for the Sullen is an ambitious project, but it is also a very human story of joy and tragedy. Adam Wiltzie grew up in the United States, where as a teenager, he dreamed of being a professional tennis player. “I once played a tournament with Andre Agassi. We went to the same sports academy. But when I was 16, a serious knee problem complicated matters…”
His sporting dreams shattered, Wiltzie turned to other interests. He threw himself into music, studied music technology, and became a sound engineer. He initially worked for a young psychedelic rock group called the Flaming Lips, and later for Mercury Rev, Iron & Wine, and Jóhann Jóhannsson. He created the group Stars of the Lid and experimented with electronic textures. But it was when working with Sparklehorse, Mark Linkous’s band, that his life suddenly changed. “After a while, I found myself playing in the band. On tour in 2007, I met Dustin O’Halloran, who was recording the piano parts for the film Marie Antoinette. We found we had similar taste, musically and artistically. One day, he suggested we work on a piece together. The chemistry was perfect. We decided to record together, without knowing what the future might bring…”

Pärt, Cage, and Piaf
Fate can be cruel. Mark Linkous succumbed to his personal demons and took his own life. His tragic death brought Wiltzie and O’Halloran closer together. “They say that after death comes new life,” says Wiltzie. “That proved to be true for us. Without Mark Linkous, we would never have met. Without his absence, we might never have developed A Winged Victory
 for the Sullen.” The collaboration between the two men intensified. “We locked ourselves in a room together to compose. We wanted to avoid distance working, sending each other files by e-mail. We wanted something real, living, and organic. So we sat at the piano and started to compose our scores the old-fashioned way, writing them down on paper. It took us two years to complete the album.”
The result is magnificent. Slow and progressive, it is built around repetitions that rub up against harmonic motifs sketched out on the piano, enveloped in strings and brass. O’Halloran and Wiltzie reinvent the modern purity of Arvo Pärt, while the subtle silences remind us of John Cage. “I like him, but not necessarily for his music. I like his ideas, his theories.”

Adam Wiltzie has now been living in Brussels for five years. When we mention New York and the vitality of the American metropolis, he answers with a famous line from Edith Piaf: “Non, rien de rien. Je ne regrette rien. I have no regrets. Life over there is overrated. Everything is about appearances. People are full of themselves. I was born in New York and I’ve lived in Austin. Sometimes I miss it. But when I return home, people annoy me. Their attitudes, their accents, and their vision of society irritate me. I was looking for a better life, and I ended up in Brussels, which is a brilliant and modest city.” His adopted city is applauds his music and his silences. Beautiful.

A Winged Victory for the Sullen
31/5 • 20.00, €16/19
Ancienne Belgique boulevard Anspachlaan 110, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-548.24.24, info@abconcerts.be, www.abconcerts.be