ENMT

for recordings of satellites, string quartet and electronics

Paris, Centre Pompidou April 18th 2021
Quatuor Diotima

**********************

Achille Judica-Cordiglia and his brother Giovanni Battista are well-known amateur radio operators who claimed in the late fifties and early sixties to have heard radio communications taken from secret Soviet Union space missions, including SOS signals, telemetry, and the dying sounds (heartbeats and breathing) of a suffocating "lost cosmonaut.” Even though their claims have been thoroughly debunked, the stories of these sensational intercepts are part of the mythology of the Space Age and stand at the origin of a durable conspiracy theory.
In the 1960s, the idea of a “lost cosmonaut” spoke to acute fears. Despite the optimism of space exploration tales, the reality of space travel—from sending a dog into orbit to putting a man on the moon—had a striking effect on the public and raised more life-altering questions than it provided answers. A cosmonaut lost in space served as a poignant metaphor for individuals’ anxieties about the future in an era of nuclear tension and uncertainty. This helps to explain the diffusion and the longevity of a hoax that identified the stain of some kind of original sin on the shiny surface of the triumphs of the early space age. Now that the cosmos has switched in our imaginations from being the route toward a radiant future for humanity to a place of accumulation for space capitalism or a post-doomsday shelter for the extremely rich, these stories of dead astronauts are more sinister and haunting than ever.

The title "Memories of the Space Age" is borrowed from the collection of stories of the same name by J.G. Ballard (1988), a set of writings thematically linked around rotting launch gantries at Cape Canaveral, the failure of the US space program, dead astronauts eternally orbiting in space, deserted hotels lining the Florida coast, and the lonely, disturbed individuals who linger at the fringes of this lost dream of the Space Age.

The piece uses more than 100 historical radio recordings of human-made objects gravitating in Low Earth Orbit, for example, the beacon beeps of satellites, telemetries, and the voices of cosmonauts, along with the ill-famed Judica-Cordiglia tapes. This material—shifted and transposed to match the harmonic structure of the piece—is the starting point for an imitation game that involves the string quartet and that grows into a complex three-layered polyphony.

In addition to these archival materials, the electronic material features digital processing of the string instruments with the modulation techniques that were, and still are, commonly used for radio and television transmission. The fragile, inharmonic sonorities of the prepared strings are mirrored by electronic phenomena like feedbacks or physically-modeled chaotic circuits that behave in similarly erratic ways, in a laborious attempt to tame the untamable while at the same time pursuing serendipitous glitches.

"Memories of the Space Age" deals with the aesthetics of ground noise, white noise, and lost radio waves, with the misuse and malfunctions of technology, and with the misinterpretation of a chaotic signal as pareidolia. It is also, somehow, a nostalgic homage to obsolete or soon-to-be-obsolete technologies and to the visions of the future these technologies carried. That future now seems irretrievably lost, but its ghost, like Ballard’s dead astronauts, still haunts us.

Mauro Lanza - "Memories of the Space Age" (2020)

"The Colour of Water" for solo saxophone(s) (soprano/alto/baritone) and chamber orchestra. Recorded on 18th February, 2017 by Arvydas Kazlauskas (saxophone) and Sinfonietta Riga (cond. Normunds Šnē) at Saxophonia festival, Great Guild Hall, Riga, Latvia.

Juste Janulyte - The Colour Of Water

Sofie is a composer and violinist from Denmark and a participant of the 5th International Young Composers Academy Ticino. Currently, she is pursuing a master's degree in composition at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre with Helena Tulve as her mentor. She is a keen improviser and also a player of traditional music. 

Her Piece is going to be at the 2nd Concert of the Academy on the 29th of July. Stream the Concert through the link:

https://fb.me/e/1acFLDzWq

When writing the piece for the Ictus Ensemble I had the wish to work with substances of sounds. Sound itself being a source of arrival and departure of both the physicality of things and the utopian dream world. The title of the piece “Which seemed, when dreamed, to mean so profoundly much” I found in Sylvia Plath’s poem “The Ghost’s Leavetaking:

“Enter the chilly no man's land of precisely
Five o'clock in the morning, the no-color void
Where the waking head rubbishes out the draggled lot
Of sulfurous dreamscapes and obscure lunar conundrums
Which seemed, when dreamed, to mean so profoundly much”

(Excerpt of the Poem)

photographer: Agita Reķe

Sofie Meyer (Denmark - Estonia 1991): Which Seemed When Dreamed To Mean So Profoundly Much

Ali Latif Shushtari is a swiss-based Iranian composer and participant of the 5th International Young Composers Academy Ticino.

While studying Mathematics and Physics fulfilling both a Bachelor and a Master of Science degree, Ali Latif Shushtari educated himself in classical music and soon discovered his passion for music theory and composition which finally led him to change his academic focus. In September 2019, he was admitted directly to a Master’s degree program in Music Composition at Hochschule der Künste Bern. He currently specializes in composition with Xavier Dayer, Simon Steen-Andersen, and Dieter Ammann.

Ali Latif Shushtari (Iran - Switzerland 1990): Quartet

The Aerial Union consists of three instrumental pieces for acoustic guitar composed and performed by Anton Ernezaks.

Anton Ernezaks: acoustic and electric guitars, kannel, electronics

Recorded and edited by Anton Ernezaks.

Hidden Vessel Of My Faith

Performed and recorded on the 2 October 2021 by the WDR chamber choir, WDR symphony orchestra, cond. Enno Poppe. WDR Funkhaus Wallrafplatz, Cologne (DE)

"Airports also have a soundtrack, a symphony of airplane engines, a couple of simple sounds that extend into a space devoid of rhythm, an Orthodox twin-engine choir, gloomy minor, infrared, infra-black, largo, based on a single chord that bores even itself. A requiem that opens with the potent introitus of takeoff and closes with an amen descending into landing". Olga Tokarczuk. The Flights. 

The piece was commissioned by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (WDR) for the 70th anniversary of “Musik der Zeit” concert series and dedicated to Harry Vogt. 

The dense micro-polyphony of “Recordare” is constructed from 3 distinct timbre groups - winds, voices and strings, each living in separate space and time dimensions like single organisms with individual heart beating, breathing and moving tempos. Their pulsating sounds merge into the interactions of growing intensity, like waves of increasing length and force, gradually expanding the dynamic scale of the piece towards the limits. 

The infinite word “recorda(re)” is circling through the choir voices continuously as a mantra and has a double meaning - “to remember” and “to record”, both symbolising the radio mission.

Video recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVXiwERS7Fc

"Recordare" for choir, orchestra and organ (2021)

Demodulation
written for ENMT (Ensemble for New Music Tallinn)
Flute: Marion Aruvee
Oboe: Heli Ernits
Clarinets: Helena Tuuling
Violin: Leevi Nielson
Viola: Talvi Nurgamaa
Cello: Émilie Girard-Charest

Conductor: Arash Yazdani
Premier at Erarta Museum and Galleries St. Petersburg


Demodulation

cantata for vocal ensemble, instrmental ensemble, trio concertante

more infos: https://www.oscarbianchi.com/compositions/matra/

Matra IV

Written for Goska Isphording&Maciej Frąckiewicz and commissioned by the Musical Aspiration Foundation (PL), co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland (programme Composing Commissions, implemented by the Institute of Music and Dance) with the support of the Lithuanian Composers’ Union.

In this piece two instruments of a very different or even opposite origin and acoustic nature are melted into a monolithic “monochrome” mechanism, as if constructing a utopian instrument with characteristics of the harpsichord and accordion. The idea of such composition came from a play on words, only changing a sequence of letters in an English name of the harpsichord: harpSIchord – harpISchord. “Harp” is being read as an arpeggio (e.g. a technique asking to play chord notes in succession upwards or downwards), while “chord” is perceived as a synchronous entrance of all the chord sounds together. In this piece the two indivisible phases of sound – sound attack and resonance – are being separated in a sense of timbre. The first one is obviously assigned to the harpsichord, which naturally has almost no resonance, and the second one clearly belongs to the accordion, dynamically raising sounds from the silence. By the way, the principle of duality/opposites is expressed also through a special use of double keyboards which both instruments have whilst the diatonic white-keys harmony comes from the “eolian (wind) harp” sound.

Justė Janulytė

At van Abbe Eindhoven

"Harp is a Chord" for harpsichord and accordion (2016)

Ensemble for New Music Tallinn
ATTHIS by Georg Friedrich Haas
conductor Arash Yazdani

soprano: Kädy Plaas
visuals: Rainer Kohlberger

clarinet: Helena Tuuling
bassoon: Sabina Yordanova
French horn: Jürnas Rähni
violin: Merje Roomere
violin: Nina Kawaguchi
viola: Talvi Nurgamaa
cello: Jarkko Launonen
contrabass: Kristin Kuldkepp 

Live recording at Estonian National Musuem in Tartu during AFEKT festival, October 2016

Atthis, Georg Friedrich Haas

Juliette Raffin-Gay, mezzo-soprano. Sivan Eldar, live electronics. Jérémie Bourgogne, sound engineer. Recorded live at Festival ManiFeste 2017.

Original text by Cordelia Lynn. Lighting and concept by Aurélie Lemaignen.

Created at IRCAM under the supervision of Hèctor Parra and Jean Lochard (Cursus 2016-17)

http://www.sivaneldar.com/youll-drown-dear

Sivan Eldar: you'll drown, dear (Juliette Raffin-Gay, IRCAM)

Performed November 8, 2019 at the Crossroads - International Contemporary Music Festival by Ensemble for New Music Tallinn.

Conductor - Arash Yazdani
Flute - Maria Elonen
Clarinet - Helena Tuuling
Violin - Nina Kawaguchi
Viola - Talvi Nurgamaa
Cello - Teemu Mastovaara

Grātia (2019), for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, and cello

Una Mujer Derramada (A Woman Spilled)for voice and orchestra. Created in collaboration with singer and poet Amyra León. Co-commissioned by l’Orchestre national Montpellier Occitanie (Opéra National Montpellier) and Orchestre de Chambre de Paris (Théâtre du Châtelet). Developed through an ENOA residency at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.

Working in close collaboration, Sivan Eldar composed the orchestral score, Amyra León composed the text, and together they composed the vocals, which serve as the basis for Amyra’s performance. 

Excerpts from the premiere at Opéra Berlioz, Montpellier, France, November 2019. Conducted by Magnus Fryklund. Recorded by Romain Roux. More info here: sivaneldar.com/mujer-derramada

Sivan Eldar: Una mujer derramada: Excerpts(Amyra León & l’Orchestre national Montpellier Occitanie)

Ensemble for New Music Tallinn
CrossRoads Festival Salzburg 2019
Teemu Mastovaara
Helena Tuuling
Talvi Nurgamaa
Arash Yazdani

Instruction Manual of How to Learn Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in 5 minutes

Orgánico A: violín, viola, cello + contrabajo a tres ejecutantes.
Ensemble for New Music Tallinn, Estonia 2019.

Canon.A

Bathe My Soul In The Fire (November 2019)
Flute&Piccolo, Bass Clarinet, Violin, Viola and Cello
Performed by Ensemble for New Music Tallinn at Crossroad Festival Salzburg, Austria

Bathe My Soul In The Fire (2019)

link to spotify below (for better recordings)

Bathe My Soul In The Fire (2019)

Cong_Wei

Related tracks