Voiceworks 2012 : Titles

Our voiceworks piece has been titled "Ground: a dialogue study".

In what ways is it possible to present a dialogue?

We have the dialogue between two persons, a dialogue between a voice and an instrument (in this case, the trombone), consonants with vowels, duet with duet, melody with melody, different speeds in speech and more...

To elaborate on the title I´ll copy-paste here a conversation (or dialogue if you will) between myself and our poet, Irum Fazal, on the 26th of January on our facebook group page.

Helgi: Maybe its to soon for this, but I just had to share this idea for a title for our piece: "Meeting place" or "no man's land" or both: "Meeting place; no man's land". I took it from one of Irums texts. We could play around with this idea and make it better if you come up with something later on. I just thought i'd throw it out there.

Irum: Thank you for suggesting this Helgi, it has made me think about titles and what they do, picking out those words has made me see they were the most important part of that text, and they weirdly encapsulate much of what we have been discussing -- I think from them 'ground' compacts further while also opening out. Whereas usually I avoid titles until the end and treat them as mini conclusions because I can feel constrained.

It ties in with what else we have been saying about voice from deep inside, obviously place, earth tribal, and the structure of building up/ disintegrating, crumbling down. And its movement, as one half of a pair, there's an immediate springing effect: I've previously performed Simone Weil's 'Gravity and Grace', and it makes me think of Samuel Beckett's interest in the world being understood in terms of 'Figures' that emerge from 'Grounds'...it cements while creating channels for what we've done so far.

this entry and others can also be view at my group´s blog : http://blogs.voiceworks.org.uk/1112/grouptwo/

Best wishes
-Helgi

Oh the luxury of being busy

Yes the pressure is on. Only 10 days till 1st performance of my and Bennett´s dance/music collaboration piece. We are a group of 7 and the lineup is as follows:

Composer: Helgi R. Ingvarsson
Choreographer: Andrew Bennett
Violin: Yolanda Bruno
Recorders: Caoimhe De Paor
Dancers: Mon Davidsson & Toni Wooff (if that is her real name)

March 29th and 30th at the Place, dance theater, London WC1H 9AT. Both performances begin at 7pm and free entrance.

Birtwistle's opera consept

I ran into this text about Birtwistle's opera "Gawain" and found it very interesting. I'm pasting it here so I don't forget to read it again.

Birtwistle's method of working is also reflected in the events of the first Act of his opera Gawain. Up to the point where the Green Knight is kneeling in front of Gawain awaiting the axe blow that will cut off his head, the action has proceeded mainly in chronological order. With Gawain holding the axe aloft, the stage is suddenly blacked out and, within a minute, the action has been rewound to the point preceding the Green Knight's entry to the Court of Arthur. Events are played through again, though compressed and with various small alterations, through the beheading and into the subsequent events. The events on stage are not randomly ordered, but the one event is portrayed from more than one perspective.

For the opera The Mask of Orpheus, this entailed two sets of singer/actors performing contradictory versions of the one event from the Orpheus myths. This non-linear portrayal of events on stage gives the listener a means of approach to the abstract compositions, with the same musical ideas being repeated but with extensive variation. The result is music that is often very episodic in structure. A clear example occurs in Silbury Air in which a readily identifiable musical motif – a blow from the tom-toms followed by scurrying figures from the strings and woodwind – is elaborated in a number of different ways as the piece progresses.

-Taken from wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Birtwistle

New discoveries and focus music

Alot of Baltic influence going on these days.

Thanks to my friend Staffan Wieslander, swedish musician, I´ve discovered a new interesting composer. Kaija Saariaho is her name, born 1952 in Finland.



Also I´m listening abit to Erik Bergman for my voiceworks project at Guildhall school. Born 1911 in Finland. Hi opus 85, Dreams for choir.

Arvo Part´s symphony 4, 2nd movement is my new "focus" music. When I have a hard time focusing on my writing, Arvo comes to the rescue. My last 2 focus pieces were Fratres, for cello and piano, also by Arvo, when writing my duet for viola and piano "Become". And when I was writing "Burned Alive" for 2 pianos it was Rachmaninof who saved me with his piano trios 1 and 2 and suit no.2 for 2 pianos.

Arvo Part´s 4th, 2nd movement:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8961544/02%20Symphony%20no.4%20_Los%20Angeles_%20%282008%29_%20Affannoso.mp3

LSC audition

I have an audition with the London Symphony Chorus this thursday, March 1st. I´ve decided to sing the old time favorite "Amarilli, mia bella", an italian aria. The reason for this pick is that I used to sing it back in my old Vocal Arts Academy in Reykjavík (http://songskolinn.is).

I have it from the inside that they are short on basses, wich is rare, and very suitible for me. This May they will tour to Brussels and Paris so I´m very anxious to join.