Name: 9 Welcome To Pleasure Island by Antoni Schonken
Duration: 2 min 32 s
Description: A collection of original underscoring and main numbers from the 2024 Stellenbosch University Department of Drama production: Pinocchio. Directed by Schalk van der Merwe.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Semyon Bychkov, conductor
Edward Gardner, conductor

Bychkov & Gardner - Broadcast

Wagner: Overture to Rienzi (December 2018)

Nielsen: Symphony No. 4 'The Inextinguishable' (December 2018)

Tchaikovsky: Manfred Symphony, Op. 58 (May 2018)

A small extract from the Horizon Project Choir's recent performance of my Mass for the Universe (text: Antjie Krog), at the Atterbury Theatre (Pretoria, South Africa) as part of the inaugural Mogale Festival. Featuring Pieter Bezuidenhout as conductor.

Gloria (live extract) from a Mass for the Universe

A concept track that I'm working on for a fan-made Batman film.

Concept Theme: Batman

I'm working on a new film score for an adaptation of Dr Strange, and these are opening titles as they stand right now. Still a work in progress.

(Concept) Dr Strange Opening Titles

Farthest Frontier - Main Theme

A collection of original underscoring and main numbers from the 2024 Stellenbosch University Department of Drama production: Pinocchio. Directed by Schalk van der Merwe.

9 Welcome To Pleasure Island

An Afrikaans prayer by Lina Spies, set for mixed choir and performed live by the Stellenbosch University Chamber Choir under directorship of Martin Berger.
Here is a rough translation of the text:

Lord, hallowed be the names
of all the children of this country --

of those who were baking mudcakes from your soil,
or chasing hyraxes in your mountains,
or tramping wool in your kraals.

I witnessed it with bated breath:
black torsos bent over powerless animals
sharp shears that held me in suspense,
scared of the slip of hand, the blood, the pain.
But, the caring black hands
never cut deeper than the white
and I could give out their just reward
because the workers were deserving
according to the number they had freed
to roam unburdened on the summer hillside.

But, the bales were tied and sent long ago already,
the milling oil washed from my feet,
my legs no longer sore from the tramping.

Forgive us, who have forgotten, who are rested,
as we forgive them, the rowdy ones
who were never in the kraal,
who never rode their horses bareback
or walked without shoes,

and Lord, see my open hands:
See! around my wrist is a band of grass;
my dark friend made it most artfully
in a way that I would never be able to...

To You belongs this country
and the sun
and the sheep on our pastures

Give us loving hands, oh Lord,
and cut away, carefully, that which debilitates us,
so that we won't needlessly spill blood

and, may you give us our deserved reward.

`n Paternoster vir Suid-Afrika

Flute: Alaina Clarice
Oboe: Liz Fleissner
Clarinet: Brian Do
Bassoon: Caden Ridge
Horn: Zachary Anderson

www.koryreeder.com

Thoughts on the piece: Quartertones and any smaller division of the octave is something I have a really hard time exploring in acoustic pieces. I love doing this with electronics- I could listen to two sinewaves beat against each other for a long time. Still, it’s been really difficult for me to incorporate this into my acoustic language. This sort of abstractly expressive sound-world isn’t always the right place for it, but I think this piece has expanded my range significantly. The emotive power and tension/release that these colors give the piece add a yearning or aching quality to the slow gestures, and there are some moments that I think just sound magical with these new colors.  

Cathrine Erb is an American photographer whose “luminous photo-based works capture a spirit of the sublime in everyday life. Her practice is a meditative process, exploring and revealing the radiance of the present moment and the complexities of relationships among people, places, things, as well as things unseen. Her studies of clouds transcend space and time with luscious translucence, while her portraits of everyday objects are instilled with the ineffable longing of memory.” 
www.davidluskgallery.com
www.catherineerb.com

Image: Detail from Catherine Erb - Cloud Study 32 (Clouds over Water), 2016, Mixed media photo encaustic, 36” x 80”

Erb Study

Internationally multi award-winning composer. Head of Composition at Stellenbosch University. 

9 Welcome To Pleasure Island

Antoni Schonken

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