French Premiere. April 5th, 2015. Ensemble 2e2m. Pierre Roullier, dir. Shigeko Hata, sop.

Program Note:

Act is a work that is concerned with the way musical ideas are heard and seen, and how the form emerges from shifts in attention from one to the other. A theatre of relationships emerges in this musical context, whereupon each performer’s physical presence and sounds are weighed against poetic, spatial, technological and physiological circumstances.

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Initially, the soprano is silent, contrasting with an ensemble that appears unified as one mass. Gradually, however, sub-groups emerge. The way the players are spatially arranged divides the instrumentalists into four heterogeneous sub-groups; at other points, the two percussionists cooperate as a duo, the strings as a quintet, and the trombone and woodwinds as a quartet. There is a special trio that consists of the trombone, clarinet and baritone saxophone equipped with laryngophones (a sort of throat microphone, of military origins), thereby isolating vocal utterances that originate in the larynx. With this special tool, the utterance of these three players engenders a sort of argument with the soprano, and her singing becomes increasingly expressive. This animates the entire group, and the work gradually opens up towards an end which is familiar yet unresolved.


Act (2014), for soprano and 12 players, Ensemble 2e2m

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