From Paddington to Dartington

Dartington, chapter #1: "From Paddington to Dartington". 

 So I made it to Dartington after 3-4 hour trip with some equally exciting and stressful moments on the train when I almost forgot the name of my stop. Thanks to very accurate descripion from DISS (nice acronym btw for Dartington International Summer School) I did manage to narrow the options down to 1 stop: "Totnes". Seeing loads of people get off the train carrying violins and cellos helped too. After checking in, a short introduction session and dinner, me and my new mates sat down at the local pub. Later in the evening it started pouring down. Sitting under a tent in pitch dark, pouring rain with an occasional thunder drinking beer is very cozy. First session of the Advanced Composition Course is today at 11am.

 

Skuggablóm á leið í prentun

Sönglagaheftið Skuggablóm er tilbúið og fer í prent í dag eða á morgun. Kærar þakkir til Árna Kristjánssonar fyrir handrit og textagerð, Eyþór Páls Eyþórssonar fyrir uppsetningu og hönnun, Hrannar Þráinnsdóttur og Kristínar Einarsdóttur og fl. fyrir prófarkarlestur! Ég get varla beðið eftir að handleika gripinn síðar í vikunni. Hægt er að panta eintak á helgirafn@gmail.com

Wreckage of Dreams: A mini opera

I´m having a wonderful time back in Iceland this summer. Meeting friends, fishing, partying and tanning (yes, tanning in Iceland. More than I ever did in England).

But the pen is always close. I wrote a mini-opera to submit to ENO´s mini operas competition (http://www.minioperas.org/). The thing is that I also needed to polish my Mmus composition folio for my viva voce this september, so I only had 2 weeks to write it, 2 day to rehearse, 1 day to record and 1 day to edit it. I´m pretty proud of it. It would not had been possible if I did not have great friends who were willing to help me out with a moments notice.


Go check it out here: http://www.minioperas.org/composer/wreckage-of-dreams-13/

ENO (English National Opera) will choose 10 soundtracks, from 130 entries, to continue to the next round August 6th.

Huuuge thanks to:

Man: Helgi R. Ingvarsson
Woman: Guðrún Matthildur Sigurbergsdóttir

Spoken word: Jenný Lára Arnórsdóttir & Haraldur Ágústsson

Choir: Guðrún Matthildur Sigurbergsdóttir, Jenný Lára Arnórsdóttir, Haraldur Ágústsson & Helgi R. Ingvarsson.

Piano: Matthildur Anna Gísladóttir
Cello: Þórdís Gerður Jónsdóttir.

Next up:
Small trip to Akureyri, Iceland. And then finishing my Mmus composition folio.

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More information about the opera:

"Wreckage of Dreams" is a mini opera, based on Shaun Gardiner´s script (http://basement-garden.co.uk/). The opening reads:

"The scene, lit only by the moon, is a small boat, adrift on the sea with a dead engine. A large number of refugees lie on the raft: they swamp it, almost concealing the shape of the hull. It is as if a mass of bodies floated on the sea. They have been adrift for fourteen days, and are dying of thirst and starvation"

This music/soundscape is a music/soundscape piece where I try to bring the audience into the world of the sea´s unpredictable currents, where the waves can be both gentle and aggressive, using only a piano, cello and 4 voices along with a few post-production effects. A larger orchestration could easily be created from this reduction. Although I treated Shaun´s script quite freely I was very intrigued by everything he wrote (written late june - july 23rd 2012).

Wisdom

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Pan-dora: the report.

Pan-dora was written for the bassoonist Ruth Hardwick and premiered at her final recital, June 1st 2012, at Guildhall, School of Music and Drama, London.

Pan-dora is meant to be a theatrical piece of music and performed as such. Bassoonist walks on stage to his/hers 2 microphones. 1 connected to the main sound system (Mic 1 (Mic 1 is optional, depending on the venue)), the other connected to the laptop (mic 2). Mic 1 is the performer´s main mic and all music should be played into it, except for the multiphonics in bars 8, 21, 34, 42 and 55. Those should be played into Mic 2 as a triggering material for the laptop. The laptop´s software (MAXmsp) will be programmed to sense all incoming signals over a certain threshold as a trigger to play the appropriate sound file (first three are sound files, the last one is a beat, generated by putting together six different bassoon sounds ranging from a few ms to a whole sec.) to accompany the performer for a few bars. Once the sound file in question reaches it´s end the performer is, "unexpectedly", left alone playing the music. This is such a shock to the performer that she/he looses concentration. After stopping she/he

then needs to restart the playback by playing another multiphonic into Mic 2. This become quite frustrating since it was "not meant to happen".

Hence the subtitle: The uncooperative machine.

In the case of a multiphonic not triggering the playback the performer should repeat the multiphonic until it does. Except for in the last bar, there the multiphonics should be played as written.

The piece ends with the 4th unsuccessful attempt to make the CPU cooperate. The performer needs to accept that this performance is over, though it may be against his/hers will. How it ends is up to the artist. Here are some ideas: Running off stage or bowing in shame. For the more extreme bassoonist one could even destroy the laptop in a rage, an old dummy CPU could be used for that.

Additional props/costumes would make this piece even more entertaining to watch.

"Pan-dora was the composer´s first attempt to set up a MAXmsp patch and instead of worrying that something might go wrong he decided to write the error into the music. The result is a theatrical composition whereby the bassoonist and laptop are to be treated as equal performers. Unfortunately the laptop does not cooperate quite as expected."

-       from the premiere´s programme.

Today the piece is approx. 3 minutes and is due to become longer as it get´s revised in the near future. Also it´s the composer´s intention to incorporate a more advanced graphic/visual aspect: everytime the performer triggers something, you dont only hear a playback, you also see a visual reaction to what is taking place. You could say you would see the detailed emotions of "Pan-dora" as she plays the loops/music/beats. How that will be portrayed has not yet been decided and will be workshoped with a designer in due course. Some visual aspects can already be found in the current patch, but they are very basic, and would hardly be convincing during a large scale performance. Even so, those basic visual aspects worked very well during the premiere and gave it that extra theatrical sparkle.

Here is a video demonstration of the patch:

http://screencast.com/t/9v2dV4zL23

The plugins I use can be downloaded from here:

http://mda.smartelectronix.com/

Best wishes
-Helgi R. Ingvarsson