New Stuff

SONG CIRCUS: Impro, inspired by C. Cardew

for Brass Septet
Recording of the german premiere in June 2013

Zug by Enno Poppe

Fragile written by Therese Birkelund Ulvo. Live from Ultima 2007. 

Fragile by Therese Birkelund Ulvo

One of my piano improvisations from the upcoming album "Flying High" recorded in Fosnavåg Konserthus on march 18th, 2019

Trall

Prix de Composition 2012, Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. Dirigé par Tito Ceccherini et interpreté par l'OLC et Matteo Cesari au Karlax.

Kaala, pour grand ensemble et electronique - Karlax (2012)

Commissioned by Klangforum Wien, award for Impuls International Composition Competition 2011.
Premiered at impuls . International Ensemble and Composers Academy for Contemporary Music 2013, Graz / Austria, by Klangforum Wien and Enno Poppe, conductor.

Eon, for ensemble (2012)

GOD 16
Bernhard Lang
Monadologie XII 
(Klangforum Wien/Johannes Kalitzke)
www.godrec.com

GOD 16 - Bernhard Lang - Monadologie XII (Klangforum Wien/Kalitzke), excerpts

The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying (1651)
A man is a bubble, (said the Greek proverb), which Lucian represents with advantages and its proper circumstances, to this purpose; saying, that all the world is a storm, and men rise up in their several generations, like bubbles descending a Jove pluvio, from God and the dew of heaven, from a tear and drop of rain, from nature and Providence; and some of these instantly sink into the deluge of their first parent, and are hidden in a sheet of water, having had no other business in the world, but to be born, that they might be able to die: others float up and down two or three turns, and suddenly disappear and give their place to others: and they that live longest upon the face of the waters are in perpetual motion,restless and uneasy, and being crushed with a great drop of a cloud, sink into flatness and a froth; the change not being great, it being hardly possible it should be more a nothing that it was before.
-Jeremy Taylor

I reread Jeremy Taylor’s exquisite sentence, the opening of The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, throughout my compositional process but, in composing my work, I was not, beyond a general stormy affect in the middle section, musically illustrating Taylor’s imagery. Rather, Taylor’s rhetoric –veering between violent and delicate imagery, and structure, its pauses unable to halt a powerful trajectory, inspired me to compose this work as a type of memento mori. Giving abstract music expressive titles is rare for me, and in any case is a tricky process. But in the wake of recent losses, both personal and national, I was moved even moved by Taylor’s text –a potent emblem of the fragility and precariousness of life.

On a purely technical level, the work is a summation of my work for strings over the last decade, especially my three string quartets composed for the Arditti and JACK Quartets. More than any overdetermining system, my work is governed by the physicality of the instruments and is marked by the gradual introduction of different playing techniques: glassy harmonics, skittish string-crossings, snap pizzicato, or even brutal sawing, often resolving once more to an uneasy calm. I embrace aspects of high modernism - albeit critically, and attempt is create something viscerally expressive, dramatically structured, using pulsing rhythmic energy to veers between extremes of fragility and violence. 

While my work has used scrapping sounds for almost ten years, after watching a recent documentary on Gerhard Richter’s process, I was struck by the aural similarities created by his process which entails dragging a scrapper across the canvas over freshly-applied paint. Scrapping that yields texture and color is important in my work. The subtitle is a nod to Richter, a constant source of inspiration. 

That said, the initial juxtapositions that inspired this work are more personal. I was asked to compose a work to accompany Richard Strauss’ Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings shortly after my grandfather’s passing. Its impossible for me think of either Strauss or my grandfather without thinking of Munich in the spring of 1945, the time when Strauss was finishing (and a bit too ambiguously dedicating) Metamorphosen.  Only a few miles a way, American soldiers liberated Dachau and my grandfather was among the soldiers that aided the victims and then escorted them south through Strauss’ Garmisch, to Salzburg and on to the Hungarian border. It is dedicated to him, and to my grandmother, who passed away shortly before I finished this work, in memoriam.

Review here: http://tinyurl.com/n5ua5g7 and (as performance of the year) here: http://tinyurl.com/l7ayod8

The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying (2012)

Song Circus (NO) is a vocal chamber ensemble consisting of professional singers from Stavanger, Oslo and Gothenburg. The ensemble is specializing in the interpretation of contemporary vocal music, and is continually exploring the voice, often through projects that combine contemporary music and improvisational based music. The ensemble has an impressive palette of sounds and expressions. The character of the different voices is an important aspect and give a unique quality to the collective sound of the ensemble.

Great emphasis is placed on establishing a close dialog with composers and creative musicians. Among collaboratiors are Trevor Wishart (UK, Jaap Blonk (NL), Ruben Sverre Gjertsen (NO), Ole Henrik Moe (NO) and David Moss (US/DE). Since the ensemble was founded in 2009, it and has been noted for the interpretation of several complex and rarely performed pieces. They have visited several European festivals and concert halls, and their concerts have been broadcasted by national radiostations and tv channels in Norway and Germany.

Song Circus is funded by The Norwegian Council of Culture.

Musical director: Liv Runesdatter.

Singers:
Liv Runesdatter
Anita Kaasbøll 
Eva Bjerga Haugen 
Maria Norseth Garli 
Stine Motland 
Rønnaug Bakke 
Signe Irene Time 



SONG CIRCUS: Impro, inspired by C. Cardew

Song Circus

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