, leader of the
Arditti Quartet, who premiered and made the first recordings of the
Helikopter-Streichquartett they used in the world premiere of the
Helikopter-Streichquartett The film, produced by , documents the preparations and rehearsals in 1995 for the world-premiere performance by the
Arditti Quartet of the 1993 composition
Helikopter-Streichquartett (English: Helicopter String Quartet) by
Karlheinz Stockhausen. This piece requires four separate helicopters (provided for the 1995 performances by the
Royal Netherlands Air Force). Within it, each helicopter carries (in addition to the pilot) one member of a string quartet, a sound technician, television camera, video, and three-channel audio transmitters, and all flying through the air simultaneously. It was premiered at the
Holland Festival. The film contains interviews with Stockhausen, the string players
Garth Knox,
Rohan de Saram,
Irvine Arditti, and
Graeme Jennings, and the pilots about the piece. The film was premiered at the
Chicago International Film Festival in October 1996, where it was nominated for several awards, was also screened at the
Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema in April 2005, and was released on DVD by
Medici.tv's label Medici Arts. ==Reception==