נחמד לחשוב שככה ביליתי את ימי שישי.

בניה ואני

Ingólfur Vilhjálmsson, bass clarinet
Amit Gilutz, prepared piano and electronics

The Miscellaneous Romance Project is a modular set of pieces based on 'missed connections' ads on craigslist and other online dating websites. Ideally, for each performance the music and text are adapted to engage and perhaps reflect something about the locality in which it is performed. 

Miscellaneous Romance no.2, for bass clarinet, prepared piano and electronics, was written for a performance by the Platypus Ensemble in Vienna, Austria. Different sonic layers are interwoven in the electronic part, as texts are drawn not only from Viennese cyberspace, but also from German Romantic love poetry, that were set to music by the quintessential Viennese composer, Franz Schubert. As in Miscellaneous Romance no.1, these texts are generated as sound files using text-to-speech software. In addition to these two textual sources which are separated sonically in different ways, a quivering choir of voices comes in every once in a while repeating a mantra which at first is indiscernible, and gradually becomes more clear: 

Ich vermisse dich, mein Schwan.
Ich vermisse dich, mein Schwan.
Ich vermisse dich, mein Schwan.

German for “I miss you, my swan”, a mysterious haiku-like yearning that someone posted on Vienna’s Craigslist. 

From Schubert’s Schwangesang, the famous and popular Serenade is sampled and it too makes several distorted appearances until it is fully reveled towards the end of the piece, only to transform and unite with the flicker of other texts.

The piece is dedicated to Kevin Ernste.

Miscellaneous Romance no.2 (Vienna)

The two etudes I wrote for school. 

Time Etude = Where The Skin Meets The Bone
Space Etude = Six Motherfucking Pitches

Where The Skin Meets The Bone

Performed by Donatienne Michel-Dansac, Lionel Peintre, Richard Dubelski and Amit Gilutz, ManiFeste-Académie-2014

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Miscellaneous Romance is a modular project based on 'missed connections' ads from online dating websites. These texts are curated and fed to text-to-speech software, generating sound-files which form the base of the piece’s tape part. Live performers on stage interact with these tracks through rules laid out in the score. Each new version keeps this general conception while the music and texts are adapted to reflect the locality in which they are performed. Miscellaneous Romance no.1, is scored for bass clarinet, prepared violin, prepared piano and electronics, and was premiered by Talea Ensemble in 2012 in Ithaca, New York, and subsequently performed by the Argento Ensemble, as well as recorded by improvising artists Annie Lewandowsky and the Cornell Avant-garde Ensemble (CAGE). Miscellaneous Romance no.2, for bass clarinet, prepared piano and electronics, was written for a performance by the Platypus Ensemble in Vienna, Austria. 

Miscellaneous Romance no.3 was written for Donatienne Michel-Dansac, Lionel Peintre and Richard Dubelski for IRCAM’s 2014 ManiFeste-Académie. As a musical source material it makes use of a quintessential parisian love song, Edith Piaf’s La Vie en Rose. The percussion part as well as the singers’ improvisations are all based on this song, a part of which also appears in the tape part towards the end of the piece. All the texts used in the piece were collected on Paris’s cyberspace on websites such as craigslist, except the text for the chanson, which appears in a distorted form achieved through repeated automated translation on google’s translator. 

The piece was created with the support of a Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship. 


Miscellaneous Romance no.3 (Paris)

Matteo Cesari - Flute
Giulio Rovighi - Violin
Francesco Dillon - Cello

Siena, Pallazo Chigi Sarancini, July 26 2014

" I have long had a fascination with that which is hinted or suggested; with traces, echoes, shadows and afterglows. I am intrigued by those sounds which are vague, nebulous or delicate, on the verge between silence and sound or between noise and pitch; with sounds which may be soft, but at the same time signify a strong energy (a gust of wind, a tremolo on a muted string...). But at times these flickers or glimmers of light, these hints of a muffled or distant energy, may give way to a bright flash of raw meaning. "

Score available here: http://www.israelcomposers.org/CompositionDetails.aspx?lang=English&id=37199

Omri Abram - a glimmer of light...

The Cat Saved My Life
A musical reading in the poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch
For voice and six instruments
Performed by Meitar Ensemble with Ayelet Amots Avramson
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TEXTS:

Human Qualities:

Nothing human is foreign to me
But neither is it very close 
It's a continuous cycle: people perish in one day
I have no interest in that

Imagination is a Measureless Thing:

A man of thirty is nothing like a baby.
He's ceased expecting miracles and won't be lured by rustles.
He won't go out of his way even after sunset
When the magnificent sea darkens and hides the sharks.

Bird’s Call at Noon:

This chirping 
Is certainly not evil.
They sing without thinking about us.
Their hearts are not heavy
Even while pecking at a worm
This chirping is completely free of malice.
Over the years it seems
Even
To have a note of compassion.   

A Mother is Walking:

Mom's walking around with a dead child in her belly
This child hasn't been born yet
When the day comes the dead child will be born
And he won't utter his first scream
He won't be like a living child
And his mother won't worry about his future
And won't ask herself if she has enough milk
He will not be like a living child
This was the story of the child who was killed in his mother's belly,
In January 1988
For security reasons.

Stones:

Why are you standing here, kid?
Why did you throw stones?
What's wrong with you, throwing stones at soldiers?
Why are you not worried, anxious about your future?
Between one arrest and another
They've got their whole lives ahead of them,
Stones, stones, stones, stones
Kids, kids, kids, kids.
Go back home kids,
How can you live without peace? 

You don’t kill a baby twice:

And the children were already laid in the puddles of filth, 
Their mouths gaping
Carefree.
No one will harm them.
You don't kill a baby twice.

Our sweet soldiers,
Sought nothing for themselves,
So strong was their desire
To go back home in peace. 

Rina Slavin:

Rina Slavin lies in bed all day long
Next to her are pen and paper
Three cups with coffee dregs
And two deodorants, for variety.
Maybe she's paralyzed 
Maybe she's lazy
Or, in higher terms,
Phlegmatic.
A small alarm clock also sits next to her bed.
There's no way she can still  
Divide and part the time
Into hours
Because she has no time
In the ordinary sense of the word.
Rina Slavin waves a muscleless hand
To get rid of an ant or a hair.
She wildly hopes
To get out of bed and stir up great things
Or simply stir. 

Tirza and the Big World:

I will soon go
To live among other peoples
Among the strangers I will chuckle
I will teach the kangaroo 
Hebrew, Bible and Math.
Please tell the strangers 
I will soon arrive.
If you can't give me an ocean
Give me snow-covered mountains 

Surely, You Remember:

Writing poems is perhaps a pleasant thing
Poems written by others I like better.
You sit in the room and all the walls grow taller
A blue scarf becomes deep as a well  

9 songs from The Cat Saved My Life (2008-2009)

For two Amplified Acoustic Guitars (2014) 
Oh Mensch Duo - Kobe Van Cauwenberghe and Matthias Koole at Tzlil Meudcan Festival, Tel-Aviv July 2014

~ Please listen with headphones

Bnaya Halperin-Kaddari - Har Caxol (Blue Mountain [as Sand])

Concertino (2013/14)

Libra Discotheque Meet Matti Caspi - Elohim Noten Hakol

Flauta en sol, Clarinete bajo, Corno, Violín, Viola, Violoncello (2012)

Ensamble Vladimir Guicheff Bogacz.

(Grabado en el salón 005 de la Escuela Universitaria de Música)

Bnaya Halperin-Kaddari - Har Caxol (Blue Mountain [as Sand])

Bnaya Halperin-Kaddari

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