Lamentations pour J

Lamentation 5

Twisting into shapes both familiar and strange

mur mur

Shadows at twilight_01

II I0 2024

Porcupine (2022) for voice. Duration 10’

Ensemble Holophony Project
Preview Full Score at www.panayiotiskokoras.com/compositions/
Studio edited mix © Panayiotis Kokoras

Porcupine starts with excerpts from the Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare. The recitation quickly turns into dramatic utterances that resemble various animal vocalizations. The vocalizations are not direct imitations of animal calls but an effort to bridge the differences and repetitions of this sonic world. The human becomes a horse, the chicken laughter and the song, breath. The singer uses a diaphragm mouth call, often used in hunting, to make sounds impossible with human vocal cords alone. In addition, the singer occasionally utilizes various objects or gestures, such as a dog collar, a book, or a finger snap, that blend into the musical context of the piece. Porcupine is made of fifteen continuous phases, each focusing on a different sound, vocalization, animal, and/or emotion. An ongoing metamorphosis from human to porcupine to dog, horse, and duck, among others. It ends with a howling variation of Saint-Saens' The Swan from the Carnival of the Animals, as it has been recorded by Clara Rockmore on Theremin (1976). The animal can now sing not only for mating rituals, warning calls, or dominance but because it likes it.

Porcupine [voice]

2024-11-29

Breathe Freely

Panayiotis Kokoras studied composition with Yannis Ioannides, Henri Kergomard, Kosta Varotsi, and classical guitar with Evangelos Asimakopoulos in Athens, Greece. In 1999, he moved to England for postgraduate study at the University of York where he completed his MA and PhD in composition with Tony Myatt. His works have been commissioned by institutes and festivals such as the Fromm Music Foundation (Harvard), IRCAM (France), Guggenheim (New York), MATA (New York), Gaudeamus (Netherlands), ZKM (Germany), IMEB (France), Siemens Musikstiftung (Germany) and have been performed in over 1000 concerts around the world. His compositions have received 98 distinctions and prizes in international competitions and have been selected by juries in more than 350 international calls for scores. He is president of the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music (ICEIM-ICEM) and a founding member of the Hellenic Electroacoustic Music Composers Association (HELMCA) and from 2004 to 2012 he was a board member and president. Kokoras’ sound compositions develop functional classification and matching sound systems written on what he calls Holophonic Musical Texture. As an educator, Kokoras has taught at the Technological and Educational Institute of Crete, and, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece). Currently, he is Regents Professor of Composition at the University of North Texas and director of the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia (CEMI).

Porcupine [voice]

Panayiotis Kokoras

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