/ a r t . s t u d i o
A conversation with Abraham Burickson, Artistic Director of Odyssey Works, about End Words, a Cinematic 360/Ambisonic production of Christopher Trapani’s work, performed by Ekmeles and featuring poetry by Ciara Shuttleworth, Anis Mojgani, and John Ashbery.
Participants:
Christopher Trapani, Composer
Jeffrey Gavett, Baritone and Ekmeles Artistic Director
Ciara Shuttleworth, Poet
Lili Maya + James Rouvelle, Visual Artists
Cutout [6×6] Roads / Drives / Avenues / Junctions / Paths / Carts
Music: Close Scrape (Adam Linson, Matt Wright)
Visual Art: Maya + Rouvelle
Curated by Ilan Volkov (Conductor, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra), and Alasdair Campbell (Creative Producer ACProjects/Alternative Currents)
Our Cinematic 360 production of Christopher Trapani’s End Words, recorded by Ekmeles and re-mastered by Christopher for this production is now available through Vimeo’s on-demand.
The project’s on-demand page is here.
Our director’s statement is here.
Music : Christopher Trapani
Performers : Ekmeles
Visual Art : Maya + Rouvelle
Poetry : Anis Mojgani, They Raised Violins (movement I)
Ciara Shuttleworth, Sestina (movement II)
John Ashbery, The Painter (movement III)
from Maya+Rouvelle:
Our intention was to create an uncanny world where Trapani’s music, its poetry and our visuals are symbiotic. The passageway to this environment is nature, filtered through the lens of Trapani’s work; spiraling between the familiar and the dream-like.
from Christopher Trapani:
I’ve always been fascinated by the sestina:
this archaic form, thirty-nine lines
that spin out in an intricate spiral.
Six-line stanzas, with six end words
that repeat in a predetermined shape.
Those patterns were begging for music.
So I started looking for poems to set to music,
and bought an anthology of sestinas.
“The Painter” was an old favorite, and the unusual shape
of Anis Mojgani’s poem—the way he streamlines
crisp, hallucinatory images and tender words—
drew me into a propulsive yet nostalgic spiral…
Predictably, things began to spiral
out of control when I started to imagine the music
I’d devise for Ashbery’s words.
“The Painter” turned into a sort of ur-sestina
setting: I started with thirty-six lines
of related natural harmonies, laid out in the shape
of a six-by-six grid. Then I shaped
the harmonic progression as a spiral
traced through that plane, drawing curved lines
that wander though disjointed consonance—music
laid out so that adjacent stanzas of the sestina
share a repeated harmony over repeated end words.
Line numbers are embedded in the words
as durations. Another grid shapes
the map of shifting tempi—so the sestina
has influenced all the piece’s parameters. The spiral’s
hypnotic rigor invades all aspects of the music.
With the singers, I prerecorded many lines,
syllables, and effects, for the electronics—lines
to chop up and retune, and sometimes single words—
to create collages of vocal sounds. The music
for “They raised violins” started to take shape
with “bones,” “string,” “petals”— each node in the spiral
set to a unique texture. And Ciara Shuttleworth’s “Sestina”
was the perfect compact shape: just six one-syllable words
whose meanings shift as the spiral unravels, lines
that fray as the sestina thins to stark, still music.
Six movements about the myth of Orpheus.
From Carduus:
In the exquisite corpse game, created and popularized by André Bréton, several players work together to draw an imaginary creature. Each person takes a turn to draw one part of the body. They cannot see the rest of the body, but they can see where the last person left off. The result is an absurd figure, contiguous but made of vastly different parts. Carduus wrote this piece using the exquisite corpse game as a model, with the story of Orpheus serving as the “corpse” that they aimed to stitch back together.
Holly Druckman’s pre-concert remarks (Youtube)
Post-premiere panel discussion with Carduus and Maya + Rouvelle (Youtube)
From Maya + Rouvelle:
When Pluto permits Eurydice to leave the underworld he instructs Orpheus not to turn his head until he reaches the light. Some interpret this as a rule, and Orpheus and Eurydice are then punished for breaking a rule. We disagree with this interpretation.
Instead, Pluto asks Orpheus to trust so that he may return to the light with his love. Pluto has been moved by Orpheus’ music and poetry. Orpheus pointed out to Pluto and Persephone that their own relationship, just like that of Orpheus and Eurydice, is based on love. This sways the lord of the underworld to make the most rare of exceptions.
Orpheus and Eurydice then begin their ascent to the light – seemingly unaware of the delicate balance of passion and reason required to reach the divine banquet above.
With their goal before them, Orpheus becomes doubtful. He reasons that he has not heard Eurydice’s steps. His anticipation becomes fear. He turns his head. Orpheus has lost his conviction. It is Trust that has been broken. His passions and reasoning, thrown out of balance, produce an inner turmoil that foils their ascent to the light. Eurydice disappears into the darkness, content with having known love, Orpheus ascends alone to the earthly realm, tortured by his loss.
Ascent to the light, in literature from antiquity, is often symbolized by one attaining wings to ascend to the divine banquet, where the eternal Ideas can be contemplated, and where reason or passion alone will not suffice. Indeed it is a balance between them that may produce the necessary metamorphosis for transcendence.
Mythological beings embody principles to be contemplated as sumbolom, fragments of wholes, each incomplete, yet when joined together they reveal otherwise hidden knowledge. A special kind of symbol. This is especially true of Orpheus and Eurydice. In other words the symbols are not representations of themselves. This knowledge was sustained by a rich oral tradition. That tradition is largely over. Perhaps the Arts have become a space for the contemplation of principles previously embodied in myth.
Our work for Orpheus Fragments poetically references the ideas mentioned above while suggesting that things apparent are the vision of things unseen.
Visual Art by Maya + Rouvelle
Music by:
— Balkovets, “Happening” @ 1:10
text from Russel Hoban’s “The Medusa Frequency”
— Bouque, “Raumgewinn” @ 2:15
texts from Monteverdi’s “Orfeo” and Rilke’s “Sonnets to Orpheus”
— De Soto, “é mesmo velha historia” @ 4:48
text from “Orfeo Negro”
— Druckman, “Eurydice” @ 6:03
texts from Margaret Atwood’s “Variation on the Word Sleep” and H.D.’s “Eurydice”
— Herzog, “Little One” @ 10:29
original text by the composer
— Hiser, “Cocytus” @ 13:05
dialogue fragments from “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”
[Texts by Russell Hoban, Margaret Atwood are used with permission.]
Soprano / Catherine Psarakis, Andrea Wozniak
Alto / Wei En Chan, Jenny Herzog
Tenor / Leo Balkovetz, Sam de Soto
Baritone / Tyler J. Bouque, Jacob Hiser
Bass / Elijah Botkin, Chris Talbot
Audio Engineer / Peter Atkinson
Carduus Director / Holly Druckman
This project is made possible in part by Choral Arts New England, and our generous private donors.
This is a 2D trailer for a CinematicVR/ambisonic realization of Christopher Trapani’s End Words for voices and electronics.
This project will be available for most VR headsets via Vimeo VOD in late April ’21.
Music : Christopher Trapani
Performers : Ekmeles
Visual Art : Maya + Rouvelle
Poetry : Anis Mojgani, They Raised Violins (movement I)
Ciara Shuttleworth, Sestina (movement II)
John Ashbery, The Painter (movement III)
from Maya+Rouvelle:
Our intention was to create an uncanny world where Trapani’s music, its poetry and our visuals are symbiotic. The passageway to this environment is nature, filtered through the lens of Trapani’s work; spiraling between the familiar and the dream-like.
from Christopher Trapani:
I’ve always been fascinated by the sestina:
this archaic form, thirty-nine lines
that spin out in an intricate spiral.
Six-line stanzas, with six end words
that repeat in a predetermined shape.
Those patterns were begging for music.
So I started looking for poems to set to music,
and bought an anthology of sestinas.
“The Painter” was an old favorite, and the unusual shape
of Anis Mojgani’s poem—the way he streamlines
crisp, hallucinatory images and tender words—
drew me into a propulsive yet nostalgic spiral…
Predictably, things began to spiral
out of control when I started to imagine the music
I’d devise for Ashbery’s words.
“The Painter” turned into a sort of ur-sestina
setting: I started with thirty-six lines
of related natural harmonies, laid out in the shape
of a six-by-six grid. Then I shaped
the harmonic progression as a spiral
traced through that plane, drawing curved lines
that wander though disjointed consonance—music
laid out so that adjacent stanzas of the sestina
share a repeated harmony over repeated end words.
Line numbers are embedded in the words
as durations. Another grid shapes
the map of shifting tempi—so the sestina
has influenced all the piece’s parameters. The spiral’s
hypnotic rigor invades all aspects of the music.
With the singers, I prerecorded many lines,
syllables, and effects, for the electronics—lines
to chop up and retune, and sometimes single words—
to create collages of vocal sounds. The music
for “They raised violins” started to take shape
with “bones,” “string,” “petals”— each node in the spiral
set to a unique texture. And Ciara Shuttleworth’s “Sestina”
was the perfect compact shape: just six one-syllable words
whose meanings shift as the spiral unravels, lines
that fray as the sestina thins to stark, still music.
Raven Chacon’s Asdzaa Nádleehé & Yoolgai Asdzaa (2016) was the first piece on our live-stream project with Ekmeles that also included Karlheinz Stockhausen’s In the Sky I Am Walking (1972). The full performance and additional information/writing about the project can be found here.
Excerpts from the Stockhausen are here.
Performed by
Charlotte Mundy, Soprano
Elisa Sutherland, Mezzo Soprano
Steven Beck, Piano
Charles Mueller, Audio Engineer
We created visual art/video/titling/staging elements for this special event, streamed live from the singers’ home in Brooklyn, NY.
Below are four excerpts from our live-stream project with Ekmeles that included Karlheinz Stockhausen’s In the Sky I Am Walking (1972). The full performance and additional information/writing about the project can be found here.
Performed by
Charlotte Mundy, Soprano
Elisa Sutherland, Mezzo Soprano
Charles Mueller, Audio Engineer
We created visual art/video/titling/staging elements for this special event, streamed live from the singers’ home in Brooklyn, NY.
LOVE SONG (Nootka)
No matter how hard I try
to forget you,
you always
come back to my mind,
and when you hear me singing you may know
I am weeping for you.
PLAINT AGAINST THE FOG (Nootka)
Don’t you ever,
You up in the sky,
Don’t you ever get tired
Of having the clouds between you and us?
PERUVIAN DANCE SONG (Ayacucho)
Wake up, woman,
Rise up, woman,
In the middle of the street,
A dog howls.
May the death arrive
May the dance arrive
Comes the dance
You must dance,
Comes the death
You can’t help it!
Ah! what a chill,
Ah! what a wind….
SONG OF A MAN WHO RECEIVED A VISION (Teton Sioux)
Friends, behold!
Sacred I have been made.
Friends, behold!
In a sacred manner
I have been influenced
At the gathering of the clouds.
Sacred I have been made,
Friends, behold!
Sacred I have been made.
A maya+rouvelle collaboration with the NY vocal ensemble Ekmeles.
Live-streamed on Saturday, July 18 at 8pm EST.
Featuring music of
Raven Chacon, Asdzaa Nádleehé & Yoolgai Asdzaa (2016)
Karlheinz Stockhausen, In the Sky I Am Walking (1972)
We created the visual art/video/titling/staging elements for this special event, streamed live from the singers’ home in Brooklyn, NY.
Performers
Charlotte Mundy, Soprano
Elisa Sutherland, Mezzo Soprano
Steven Beck, Piano
Charles Mueller, Engineer/Technical advisor
Ekmeles’ core female vocalists present a special live-stream edition of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s In The Sky I am Walking (1972), and a November 15th 2019 recording of a live performance of Raven Chacon’s Asdzaa Nádleehé & Yoolgai Asdzaa Changing Woman / White Shell Woman.
Both works speak to an “ancient future” via their integration of contemporary and traditional practice.
In The Sky I am Walking was composed during a period when Stockhausen was experimenting with musical forms and experiences based on punctuated gestural, timbral, and harmonic loops. The Diné Bahane’ (Navajo: Story of the People), from which Chacon drew inspiration for his work, involves a similar contemplation of loops in time punctuated by gestures and moments of unity and individuation.
Our settings of Asdzaa Nádleehé & Yoolgai Asdzaa and In The Sky I am Walking envision an active common ground that gives sentience to these two worlds, energized by the rhythm, loop and nuance of their eternal transformation of each other.
The visual language encoded in the live stream itself: the set, camera angles, choreography, etc., acknowledges our shared moments of social distance and aspirations of transcendence.
Stockhausen’s theatrical work is based on English translations of poetry from the Chippewa, Pawnee, Nootka, Teton Sioux, Ayacucho, and Aztec nations.
Chacon’s work is titled for two powerful goddesses in the Navajo tradition, Changing Woman and White Shell woman. The text draws on important elements of the Diné Bahane’.
This performance is free to all, and will be online for one week following the live stream. We would like to call your attention to the Navajo Nation COVID19 Relief Fund. Details on donations both monetary and non-monetary can be found at: nndoh.org/donate.html
Concert footage excerpts from the March 1, 2020 performance of Monteverdi Vespers featuring the Baltimore Choral Arts Society, Washington Cornett and Sackbutt Ensemble, Baltimore Baroque Band, and Peabody Renaissance Ensemble, conducted by Blake Clark.
The complete videos we made for each movement with the Vespers conducted by John Eliot Gardner, as well as some writing on the project are here. Still images from both the concert and videos are here.
Below are links to two photo sets from the March 1, 2020 Monteverdi Vespers performance with the Baltimore Choral Arts Society, Washington Cornett and Sackbutt Ensemble, Baltimore Baroque Band, and Peabody Renaissance Ensemble, conducted by Blake Clark.
The videos for the performance are in our previous post.
Concert images, click here to see the entire set on flickr
Still images from our videos, click here to see the entire set on flickr