Industrial agitator JG Thirlwell premieres new classical works with Orlando's Alterity Chamber Orchestra

After the curtain — metaphorical or real — falls on a concert, it's business as usual for a bit of small talk between venue manager and performer. But when the two people chatting are industrial provocateur-turned-composer JG Thirlwell and local Timucua Arts mover Benoit Glazer, things can get a little more intense.

Thirlwell was, improbably, in town at the end of 2022 due to the machinations of the Modern Music Movement to perform a one-off solo set at Orlando institution Timucua Arts Foundation house. Thirlwell — a lifetime dweller on music's adventurous fringes — played Silver Mantis, a four-channel solo performance built from prepared piano, electronics and theremin, augmented by visuals by Swedish artist Sten Backman. (We were there and the prepared piano movement was particularly stunning.)

"It was a whirlwind of a trip, so the main thing I saw in Orlando was the inside of the performance space," laughs Thirlwell. "I was really impressed by how well it was outfitted and how resourceful Benoit had been in creating that space, and the fact that he lived there as well."

We should backtrack ever so slightly here for a moment to (re)introduce Thirlwell to you, the reader. Depending on your aesthetic inclinations, you may know Thirlwell best from his seminal and riotous industrial project Foetus and his many spin-offs — Steroid Maximus, Clint Ruin, Manorexia and even the Stinkfist mini-album with Lydia Lunch (complete with that ooh la la cover art) — which mixed his compositional ambitions with synth-punk attitude to spare. Or you may know him as the bombastic composer behind scores for cutting-edge animated shows like The Venture Bros and the recently wrapped Archer. Or, if you're particularly out on the fringes, you've probably given classical pieces Thirlwell wrote for avant ensembles like Bang on a Can or Kronos Quartet a spin.

Anyway, on that December evening, Glazer and Thirlwell's chat took a fateful turn. "He said, 'I've worked with this chamber orchestra, the Alterity Chamber Orchestra, we should talk about maybe doing something.' He is extremely motivated and resourceful and he got this all together so that we could do this,"recalls Thirlwell. "I had a window where I could write some stuff and it was a great opportunity to work with a chamber orchestra and to also write a wind quintet as well, which is something I've never done before."

"James is a very interesting, unique artist. He is like an artistic athlete who plays many different sports. Many composers have a strong inner critic — a strong sense of right, wrong, social acceptability, aesthetics, etc.," points out Glazer. "We often limit the originality and quality of our output with these notions. James is more open-minded, more of a free thinker, and I think we, as a society, should try to encourage this."

Glazer commissioned Thirlwell to write "a concert of new music" for powerhouse local avant ensemble Alterity Chamber Orchestra to perform in Orlando. Thirlwell set to work on "two pieces for full chamber orchestra and one for a smaller group," according to Glazer.

For Thirlwell, his creative progression from Foetus' swaggering noise to composing for small classical ensembles makes perfect sense — but with a fittingly dark twist.

"In some ways, it's kind of a reaction against my studio work or the way that I started making music. [Foetus] was a very studio-centric project where I played all the instruments. I used the studio as an instrument," says Thirlwell. "When I started to write for chamber ensembles — I'm self-taught. I didn't go to conservatory; this was a new technology and that excited me. There was the organic element that impressed me, of course. But the other thing that impressed me was, you know, when the world comes to an end and we don't have electricity and computers, one day someone might be walking down a lonely road, and a sheaf of paper will be tossed around in the wind and that'll fall at their feet and be one of my scores. And someone can put a little chamber ensemble together and play that."

Glazer, fittingly, sees this wild project through from conversational concept to performance execution by conducting Alterity on the evening — their first show since 2022's "Divergent Pulsations."

"Alterity is the brainchild of Beatriz Ramirez and Natalie Grata. It is a chamber orchestra ... composed of a string quintet, a wind quintet, a brass trio, a percussion duo and a pianist," explains Glazer. "It is a versatile instrumentation that can be quite powerful, has most of the textures of the full orchestra with piano, but is much more agile."

Glazer also gives a breathless preview of the evening that would put any rock writer [including this one!] to shame: "'Exulansis' is a very, very difficult piece to play. It is also a neurotic, hectic, schizophrenic, industrial, crazy piece that will bring up your blood pressure, for the players and for the audience alike. 'Hernea', for wind quintet, is a slow piece with intensely beautiful moments, and a couple of very high sections from the flute and clarinet that, if we pull it off, will evoke a sense of beauty amongst the rough edges of life. This piece plays a very important role in the menu of the evening. Palate cleanser may be the wrong expression, but it will bridge the two big pieces nicely, and offer an oasis of calm in the eye of the storm. 'Magnus Morbus' is another very intense, fast, and relentless piece, a punk-classical piece that does not let go."

Thirlwell emphasizes the calm amidst the musical storm that is "Hernea": "The woodwind quintet, I wanted to do that because ... those [other] two pieces are extremely demanding on the players. They're very high energy and energetic and intense. I wanted to have something that would make it so that the musicians didn't injure themselves."

For the deep Foetus-heads out there, Alterity also tackles the formidable Manorexia piece "Armadillo Stance," which Thirlwell has reconfigured as a piece for string quartet.

Thirlwell will be there on the evening, but besides "maybe taking a bow," he will leave the music that night fully up to Glazer and Alterity.

Glazer, however, will be a man possessed as both conductor and producer on the show — but he's unconcerned: "Lucky for me, Alterity is a nimble group made up of very dedicated, resourceful people who are all loving, generous humans. It makes the job easier."