Musical Compositions

Setting	Prepared mixed choir (12 parts) or prepared vocal sextet (mixed, female or male voices).
Period of creation	12 parts: 2010-09-26 to 2010-10-09. 6 parts: 2010-12-20 to 22 (early version for women’s choir) and 2020-01-16 to 24.
Duration	5 min (early version for women’s choir: 4 min 15 sec).
Commission / occasion	Commissioned by the Connect Festival in Malmö (Swe) 2010 and by the IGNM (ISCM) Austria 2011.
Publisher	BabelScores: mixed choir + women’s choir.

The main idea behind the piece is a confrontation of two timbral pro­ces­ses within the sound world of a prepared 12-part mixed choir: On the one hand, a poetic lava of slow­ly mov­ing sound masses from harmonica playing sin­g­ers, on the other hand, a parodistic fire­worksof emotional, theatrical and quickly moving in­ter­jec­tions from whistle blowing speakers.
Formally, the composition is divided into 8 sections, of which sections 1-4 and 7-8 rep­resent the confrontation between 6 singing and 6 speaking voices, whereas sec­tions 5-6 are entirely sung and form a kind of static climax.
The development of den­si­ties runs in the same direction (in both timbral processes) in sections 1 and 8, but in opposite directions in sections 2, 3, 4 and 7. The develop­ment of pitch or brightness proves to be rather static in the spoken layer, but dynamic in the sung counterpart, in which the registers are rising between sections 1 and 4, but falling between sec­tions 7 and 8.

2020-10-02	Exaudi and James Weeks (conductor) Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen (Ger) – mixed sextet version / cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic
2020-10-01	Exaudi and James Weeks (conductor) Festival Hörfest for New Music, at the Culture Factory Hangar 21 / The Cube (Kubus) in Detmold (Ger) – mixed sextet version / cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic
2020-08-08	Voktett Hannover and Justus Barleben (conductor) Festival Hitzacker Summer Music Days, at the St. Johannis-Kirche (St. John’s Church) in Hitzacker (Ger) – mixed sextet version / cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic
2020-03-22	Exaudi and James Weeks (conductor) Resonans Festival, at the Studio Acusticum / Main Concert Hall in Piteå (Swe), radio recording by SR P2 – mixed sextet version / cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic
2020-03-21	Exaudi and James Weeks (conductor) Festival Svensk Musikvår (Swedish Music Spring), at the S:t Jacobs kyrka (St. James’s Church) in Stockholm (Swe) – world premiere (mixed sextet version) / cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic
2013-03-18	Jeunesse Chamber Choir Vienna and Ajtony Csaba (conductor), version for mixed choir Broadcast on ORF Ö1 Radio / Zeit-Ton (Aut) at 23.03 h, live recording from 2013-02-23 (RadioKulturhaus in Vienna), with an introduction by Ursula Strubinsky
2013-02-23	Jeunesse Chamber Choir Vienna and Ajtony Csaba (conductor), version for mixed choir ORF concert hall / Ra­dioKulturhaus in Vienna (Aut), prize winner con­cert, radio recording by ORF Ö1 – world premiere
2011-09-01	Jeunesse Chamber Choir Vienna and Ajtony Csaba (conductor), version for mixed choir Vienna (Aut) – work­­shop
2011-01-25	Vox Pulchra and Núria Cunillera Salas (conductor), version for women’s choir ZKM in Karlsruhe (Ger)
2010-10-14	Eric Eric­son Cham­ber Choir and Cecilia Martin-Löf (conductor) Connect Festival in Malmö (Swe)

24,24%

Winner of the Vocal Music Competition by the IGNM (ISCM) Austria and commission for a vocal work, 8/33 (2011-02).

View score example.

Eric Eric­son Cham­ber Choir & Cecilia Martin-Löf;
Malmö 2010-10-14 (public workshop);
bars 1-24;
duration: 1 min 30 sec.