Performed at the Camberwell Arts Festival 
Butterfly Walk Shopping Arcade, London SE5
27th June, 2009 
 
“Edith Piaf and Enrico Caruso are examples of street singers who went on to bigger things. Whereas they had great voices, I’m unsure about the aesthetic quality of my own voice since I don’t (have to) hear it.
 For the ‘Fivepenny Opera’ I will sing - unaccompanied - as a feral busker in the small shopping arcade, ‘Butterfly Walk’ off Denmark Hill just south of Camberwell Green. My chosen style will be that of a warbling ‘colaratura’ opera singer, (pace Florence Foster Jenkins). Having the dubious capacity to render popular songs* in a bombastic, cod-operatic baritone, I will take requests from the public and attempt to convert their favourite songs into this dramatic style.
 This bitter pill will be sweetened. Instead of requesting financial contributions from the credit-crunched public, I shall dip into my bowl to distribute silver 5p pieces to anyone who pauses before me: to pay them to listen if you like.
 At 3pm, Aleksander Kolkowski of ‘Recording Angels’ will swoop into the arcade to make a wax-cylinder recording on an antique 1909 machine, the likes of which was used to record Enrico Caruso. . . 
 
(NOTE): * Assuming that I can recall the tune of the song since I went completely deaf around 1985. Examples of songs that I have been able to convert into an operatic style include ‘Yellow Submarine’, ‘Tutti Frutti’, ‘Seasons In the Sun’, ‘Sailing’, ‘Born to be Wild’, ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ etc. However, I am also game to interpret/ improvise songs I’ve never heard.”

Aaron Williamson

As an artist my engagement with performance, objects, place and space is entirely transformed through the experience of becoming profoundly deaf over the course of some twenty years. Informed by this radical personal alteration, my art practice takes an interdisciplinary approach. Hence, my artistic projects remain open to innovation according to circumstance and I have explored working with performance, installation, photography, video, sculpture, text, choreography and digital art – often combining elements within one work. In the last ten years I have created performances, publications, installations and artist’s videos in Britain, Europe, Japan, Greenland, China and North America. I am the Artistic Director of the collective of disability artists, 15mm Films – see www.15mmfilms.com

http://www.aaronwilliamson.org/

Recording Notes.

One of two cylinders made during Aaron’s performance, the other being his interpretation of “Yellow Submarine”. Both were played back to the assembled crowd.

I used an original phonograph studio recording horn c. 1905 and almost 6.5 foot long.
The painted black horn is made from thick layers of papier mache in order to cancel out any resonant frequencies that might interfere with the recording. Very faintly in the background, you can hear that the horn has captured ambient noises from the shopping arcade including sounds from passersby, children’s voices and applause after the song.

See: http://www.phonographies.org/2011/08/16/aaron-williamson/

Aleks Kolkowski


“Tutti Frutti” from the ‘FIVEPENNY OPERA’ by Aaron Williamson Cylinder

Ailis Ni Riain Cylinder.mp3

Akio Suzuki Cylinder.mp3

Bora Yoon Cylinder.mp3

Feral Choir Cylinder.mp3

Furt Cylinder.mp3

Glyn Perrin Cylinder.mp3

Recorded on 7th August, 2010 at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal.
A two-minute wax cylinder recording made by Aleks Kolkowski during a break in a rehearsals by the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, in preparation for a concert in the Jazz Em Agosto Festival 2010 in Lisbon. The location was a studio space inside the Gulbenkian Foundation and the recording was of Ikue playing live from her laptop. The cylinder was also played back on an Edison Phonograph during concert the following evening. Further details here: http://www.phonographies.org/2011/09/02/ikue-mori/

Ikue Mori Cylinder.mp3

Lydia Kavina Cylinder.mp3

Rexine- Paper Dolls.mp3

Richard Crow Cylinder.mp3

Entremeses Cylinder.mp3

Tetsuo Kogawa Cylinder.mp3

Ute Wassermann Cylinder.mp3

Elaine Mitchener Cylinder

Xmas 1912 Cylinder

BJ Nilsen Cylinder

Jacob Kirkegaard Cylinder

Keith Rowe Cylinder

Simon Waters Cylinder

Sabu Toyozumi Cylinder

Sean Williams Cylinder

Paul Lytton Cylinder

Harald Muenz Cylinder

Tiffany Anne Tondut Cylinder

Graham Buchan Cylinder

John Clarke Cylinder

Phil Minton Cylinder

Christopher Fox Cylinder

Aleks Kolkowski & Ute Wasserman Cylinder

The ElectroAcoustic Ensemble "Stones" Cylinder

Rie Nakajima Cylinder

Jonathan Sterne reads part of the introduction to his book "MP3: The Meaning of a Format". Recorded by the author on an early brown wax cylinder c. 1900 at the Science Museum, London, on 23rd June, 2012. See http://phonographies.org for more details.

Jonathan  Sterne Cylinder

<a href="http://www.phonographies.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.phonographies.org</a>/
Phonographies is an audio archive of contemporary wax cylinder recordings featuring a wide range of musicians, improvisers, composers, writers and artists. The sounds and music presented here are digital transfers taken from grooves inscribed on one-of-a-kind two-minute cylinder records. 
All the entries have been recorded and reproduced mechanically and acoustically, using horns and early 1900s Edison phonographs.
Visit <a href="http://www.phonographies.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.phonographies.org</a>/ for information on the artists, the archive and the making of the recordings. Phonographies is a project recorded and curated by Aleks Kolkowski.



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