Written for three acapella voices: Mezzo-Soprano, Alto and Tenor
Performed by: Mhairi Carson, Eva Black and Mikey Cottom

Based on a poem by Claire Laurence:

there is somewhere a missing seam that
takes this thing from balmy breath to bright like a
candle in a hollow. the matchstick tread from end of aisle

up to the alter and its cloth with all the light around us reeling, keening like and angel made of bone and dental fragments, rented, stagnant, time stood still between

the cavern of our palms an endless moment of the ache
inside your womb-wound heart and here i wonder: if i take you and your shoulders and your hipbones and your eyelids, if i

take you, all your love inside me rolling like the ocean boiling off, if i take and i lead you with your hand inside my hand, will you follow to my crater cave and build a garden there.


Programme notes: 

Song for the Nuclear Winter was born out of a conversation with my close friend Claire in which we discussed the intensity of relationships where the stakes of loss and gain are always so high. Claire described her poem as capturing the ‘frantic desperation of love as well as the reward that can be reaped in the form of growth’ but doesn’t shy away from exploring the neurotic and challenging nature of romantic love and the rituals that surround it. The title alludes to the universal impulse to make music in times of destruction and apocalypse, similar to the way love and devotion brings people together during times of hardship.

In my musical setting of the poem, I have attempted to explore these themes and ideas through contrasting musical sections which doesn’t follow the immediately noticeable structure of the poem, but instead functions in a way that dramatizes the continuously shifting tone in a theatrical manner. The arresting and perhaps restrictive religious imagery that permeates the poem lends itself to a chorale like texture. However, the music doesn’t become fully homophonic until the end of the piece, and until so, employs an array of extended techniques like whispering, humming and clapping which enhances the performative aspect of the music. These effects are layered over rhythmically charged verbs like ‘keeling’ and ‘reeling’ exacerbating the feeling of unease and being overwrought with emotion. The mood drastically changes in the final two stanzas as the melody from the opening section of the piece is heard in the major key. The theme of love transforms into an irresistible force which cannot be restrained. As the speaker makes the final demand of love, the voices move in complete unison in a chorale like fashion with short dramatic pauses in between phrases intensifying the lover’s plead.

Song for the Nuclear Winter (2021)

Babel is a fixed media electroacoustic piece inspired by the biblical story of Babel which explains the multiplicity of languages in the world. According to the myth, in early Mesopotamia in the land of Shinar, humans begin an ambitious project by building a city with its tower reaching high up into the heavens. God offended by this overzealous and blasphemous act, punishes them by giving each floor a separate language. Their inability to communicate with one another causes them to become divided and dispersed across the earth and furthermore becomes the source of all of mankind’s conflicts. My piece, in that respect, attempts to illustrate and comment upon the chaos that ensues before and after the breakdown of cross-cultural communication with language being the focal point of the conflict.

I was very drawn to the idea of using the human voice as my only sound source for this composition. With the story of Babel in the back of my mind, I decided to record different languages from an arbitrary selection of linguistic groups and further explore their contrasting phonetic qualities through micro-editing, granular synthesis, layering and juxtaposition. 

Languages recorded and spoken by:

English: Mikey Cottom and Eva Black
Welsh: Rhiannon Morgan 
French: Guillaume Dujat
Estonian: Helena Atkin
Hungarian: Abigel Vizi
Turkish: Deniz Dortok
Mandarin Chinese: Yuqing Liu
Gujarati: Rutik Joshi

Babel (2022)

Original Score of short film Swine (2022)
Directed by Ege Kucucuk and Nikolas Kunesch
Music composed by: Deniz Dortok
Music Editor: Ural Turan
Conductor: Rutik Joshi
Soprano: Eve Hancock
Violin: Eleanor Prout
Cello I: Caroline Morris
Cello II: Rob Hughes
Cello III: Henry Bole
Cello IV: Patrick Beare

IMDB link to film:

Epilogue

Redemption

Garden Shed

Happiest Day/Eros

Swine!

Credits

Power Struggle/Goosebumps

Prologue

Duet for Harp and Bassoon
Performed by Anne-Marie O'Farrell(Pedal Harp) and John Hearne(Bassoon)

Programme Notes:

Palpitations is a piece exploring the embodied sensation of affection. The feeling frequently described as ‘butterflies in your stomach’, is portrayed in the music through a series of tremolo patterns decorated by key clicks and aeolian sounds. This is followed by a short passage in strict 4/4 with harp harmonics, offering a brief moment of respite and clarity. This is quickly undermined by the following section characterized by continuous changes in temperament, as feelings of confusion, anxiety and vulnerability become manifest. As such, the music never really settles in on a specific ‘mood’ or ‘feeling’, but instead avoids confrontation through a series of abrupt changes in dynamics, texture and rhythm. The piece ends with an almost exact repetition of the opening material, suggesting that these string of emotions form a ‘never ending’ cycle. A pattern that must be broken by acknowledging and embracing our feelings rather than avoiding them, or worse burying them deep inside of us. Indeed, the pattern breaks when a minor 3rd interval is heard for the first time in the tremolo figures and the music gradually disintegrates into complete silence.

Palpitations (2022)

Written for Flute, Bb clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano
Performed by the Edison Ensemble

Programme Notes:

The title 'Goldmund’s Journey' is a reference to Herman Hesse’s renowned novel, 'Narcissus and Goldmund' which recollects the story of two antithetical characters: Narcissus, an astute scholar who commits himself to becoming a monk and Goldmund, an artistically gifted romantic who is hungry for worldly experiences. Taking this title as a starting point, I have attempted to explore the connection between literature and music by composing a piece that would musically illustrate Goldmund’s journey towards self-revelation, provoked by his friend Narcissus who believes his destiny lies in something outside of the world of scholarship.

The sombre slow introduction reflects Goldmund’s struggle to conform to the rigid monastic life in the Monastery, before being persuaded by his friend Narcissus, to embark on a journey to discover his true purpose in life. The homophonic texture combined with the repetitive, yet evocative chord progression, suggests order and control which implies the world of logic and erudition surrounding Goldmund in the monastery. Nevertheless, the long-held expressive notes in the melody line played by the woodwinds and the high register of the piano, reinforces Goldmund’s reckless child-like self by conjuring up a world of mental images and dreams. 

The scherzo section of the piece, although opening in a minor key, is energetic and jubilant in character which represents Goldmund’s liberation from religious constraints, as he starts to embrace all his senses and pursue his inner desires. The texture layered upon a forceful ostinato cello line, becomes more contrapuntal as each instrument interjects with colourful melody lines which imitate Goldmund’s sentiments pulling him unwillingly to conflicting directions. The piece comes to a closure with the piano playing fast descending arpeggiated chords against the strings and woodwinds playing loud sustained notes, which symbolizes Goldmund’s demise as he gives “vent to the torrents of emotion” leading him to the path towards his maternal origins which according to Hesse is, “…all that was terrible and dark, all lust, all fear, all sin, all misery, all birth, all inescapable death.”.

Goldmunds Journey (2019)

A short piece for solo flute
Performed by Rosanna Ter-Berg

Folly (2018)

The Old Man and the Sea is a fixed media electroacoustic piece inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s famous novel of the same name. Listening to Manuella Blackburn’s composition Landline and music performed at the 2019 Manchester Mantis Festival, I was tempted to limit the ‘real world’ sounds in my music using only two sound-sources, a sailboat and water. Through granular synthesis, FFT processing and various plug-ins on software such as Cecilia, Max8 and Reaper, I tried to capture the sound world described in the Hemingway’s prose by manipulating and reconfiguring the sonic fabric of my original sound-sources.

Deniz Dortok

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