In Memoriam the German composer
Roland Kayn (1933-2011)

A pioneer of electronic music and an unremitting curiosity to discover hidden sound horizons. On Wednesday 5th January, the German-born composer who resided in the Netherlands, Roland Kayn, passed away.

Kayn was best known for his so-called cybernetic music. Electronic works which come about according to a unique, self-regulating sound process. Kayn had the following to say about it in 2002: “I call it music with a feedback. Sounds which are continually renewing themselves, independent of the composer. As a composer, you accept the sound process.” Kayn’s cybernetic works such as ‘Makro’, ‘Tektra’ and the ten-hour masterpiece ‘Scanning’ consist of prolonged, hallucinogenic sound fields and tumultuous sonic eruptions. Truly music of the future.

Roland Kayn studied composition under, amongst others, Boris Blacher, Josef Rufer and Oskar Sala and his early orchestral works were performed under the baton of Bruno Maderna and Pierre Boulez. Kayn was one of the first composers to set to work with monumental, graphic scores. Kayn also formed part of the famous improvisation company Gruppo Internatiozionale d’improvvisazione Nuovo Consonanza with composers such as Aldo Clementi, Ennio Morricone and Frederic Rzewski. At the beginning of the 1970s, Kayn moved to the Netherlands and since 1999 lived permanently in the village of Nieuwe Pekela in Groningen. Much of Kayn’s work was released on his own label, Reiger Records.

In the past, De Concertzender has regularly devoted attention to Kayn’s work, including a whole night of his electronic music and recently the broadcasting of his cycle from 2009 ‘A little Electronic Milky Way of Sound’.

(Mark van de Voort)

the broadcast of "Milky Way" can be listened to again via the following links:
PART 1
PART 2