György Ligeti (1923 - 2006)
Recorded in Baxter Concert Hall, September 2013

György Ligeti Etude No. 5 'Arc en ciel'

20-minute audio collage composed from a personal collection of recordings made with an iPhone, and reflective texts. Aired on Cashmere Radio on 22 November 2019 as part of the seminar “Experimental Radio Practice.”


A personal archive of recordings made with an iPhone between 2016 and 2019 provides various sites for reflection on the politics of land and space, as well as an intimate exploration of the poetics of memory. A series of vignettes guide the listener through reconstructed episodes, traversing narrative pasts not according to modern time, but by associated images, sounds and affects.

Re-collection

The piece was a commission for the South African pianist and multidisciplinary artist Coila Enderstein in affiliation with the South African Music Rights Organisation, SAMRO. The focus of the piece was sculpted around the personality and interests of the performer, composing a piece that truly reflects the instrumentalist it is written for, drawing from her psychology and physiology. The piece incorporates extra-piano sounds, including the tap sounds against the lid of the instrument, foot and whistle sounds. The former techniques are designed around a choreographed sound generation concept, a kind of internal dance with the hands mimicked in the depressing of the keys, while engaging the lid of the piano. The extreme registers of the instrument are also frequently used to echo this idea, creating a dance through using the highest and lowest keys of the keyboard resulting in big arm movements.
Personality tests and interviews were conducted to create a thorough profile of the performer.

Self - Portrait (for solo piano and contact microphones)

"Light the Wild"
Commissioned as part of the New Music Collaboration at the Johannesburg International Mozart Festival 2018.

Waldo Alexander - violin
Magda da Vries - marimba
Anna-Marie van Zyl - alto flute
Viwe Mkizwana- bass

Naomi van Niekerk - live visuals/animation

Many thanks to JIMF 2018, Goethe Institut Johannesburg, and the 2018 resident composers Matthijs van Dijk and Lungiswa Plaatjies.

Light The Wild (Live @ Johannesburg International Mozart Festival 2018)

A live recording of the piece Now for Triads for robot toy piano (built by inventor Ranjit Bhatnagar) and MIDI soundtrack (for stringed virtual instruments) performed at the New York City Electronic Music Festival 2018. Watch a video recording of the piece at this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJxQYAVidWo

The title suggests the setting up of a musical environment in which moments, centred around a pitch completing the structure of a triad, establishes the melodic thread audible throughout the work. It also  alludes to the philosophical ruminations considering the robotic performer and its inability to naturally piece musical notes, phrases and sections together as would have been the case with a human performer to make compositional sense of the idea and intention of the piece. One of the foundations of a specific musical history, the triad, very dear to the composer, is implemented as a  a structural means throughout the piece, illuminating the pitches of which it consists. The triads are dressed as musical motifs of which there are two prominent ones in the work.

Now For Triads

South African pianist, artist and performer whose experimental practice spans multiple disciplines

Re-collection

Coila-Leah Enderstein

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