Soloist(s) and Orch./Ens. and/or Choir
With live-electronics
Instrumentation (general)
2010
37' 00"
soprano, speaker, ensemble and electronics
soprano, speaker, ensemble and electronics
Document title (ThS)inking Survival Kit
Date of Composition· 2010
Instrumentation
Musical Category Soloist(s) and Orch./Ens. and/or Choir
With live-electronics
Instrumentation (general) soprano, speaker, ensemble and electronics
Premiere
Date 2010/Jul/06
Performer(s)
Sond'Ar-te Electric Ensemble, Frances M. Lynch (soprano), Pedro Carneiro (percussion), Miguel Azguime (live electronics), Jean-Sébastien Béreau (conductor)
Organization/Event COLF - City of London Festival
Venue Mercers Hall
Town London
Country United Kingdom
Text / Lyrics
Author of the Text William Shakespeare
Title of Poem or Text -
Author of the Text James Joyce
Title of Poem or Text -
Author of the Text Paul Verlaine
Title of Poem or Text -
Author of the Text Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen
Title of Poem or Text -
Author of the Text Maria José
Title of Poem or Text -
Author of the Text Luís de Camões
Title of Poem or Text -
Program Notes
"(ThS)inking survival kit" was commissioned by the City of London Festival with funding from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in co-production with EGEAC (Lisbon) and responds in its own way to the underlying theme of the festival, more specifically sustainability, biodiversity and climate change, including the question of eustasy (term used to describe the global change in sea level).
The piece develops thus under these environmental issues with water, sea, birds, marine animals, bees and even fantastic beings, taking a prominent role in the construction of the formal program for the work.
The poems or fragments of poems used in the piece also converge in the same direction, forming the symbolic archetypes of a supra narrative yet abstract.
Texts from 7 poets are used in the piece in the following order of appearance:
William Shakespeare - fragment from "The Tempest", James Joyce - fragment from "Chamber Music", Paul Verlaine - "Un grand sommeil noir / A long black sleep", Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen - "No fundo do mar / At the bottom of the sea" Fernando Pessoa - fragment from " Para Além Doutro Oceano de C.Pacheco / Beyond another ocean by C.Pacheco", Luís de Camões - fragments of Book V of "The Lusiads", Herberto Helder - fragment from "Photomaton & Vox".
"(ThS)inking survival kit" builds up into 6 parts which happen seamlessly between them, 6 parts that form a hexagon (such honeycomb), a cycle that repeats itself in cycles. The first part presents us the first author: Shakespeare, and with him various symbols of bio-diversity; in the second part these poems fuse into a text by James Joyce which is in turn eroded until its disappearance giving place to the language of birds and cetaceans; the third part moves on underwater, under the sea and downtime, and sets the poems of Paul Verlaine and Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen; the fourth part uses short fragments of a poem by Fernando Pessoa, rewriting them and animating them in a return to surface waters; in the fifth part is the "inevitable" encounter with the "Adamastor" and Luís de Camões, and it is also a return to the tempest and the movement of life; and in the sixth part the hexagon is complete, in the desire for perpetual renewal of nature in the endless multiplication of a mirror in front of a mirror, as says the poem by Herberto Helder.
Associated with each text is a sound object of unique timbre and harmonic characteristics that will give rise to both the instrumental writing as well as the electronic part, either pre-composed or in real time. The video links vision to the ears for a total "submersion".
"(ThS)inking survival kit" was specially written for the Sond'Ar-te Electric Ensemble with the collaboration of two exceptional soloists: the soprano Frances Lynch and percussionist Pedro Carneiro, and results also from a creative partnership with Paula that Azguime whom takes the responsibility for the entire image and dramaturgy, thus marking a long journey of 25 years of working together within the Miso Ensemble. Image and video also have the collaboration for the 3D of Perseu Mandillo and the support of the Portuguese Committee for the International Polar Year.
Miguel Azguime
Sond'Ar-te Electric Ensemble, Frances M. Lynch (soprano), Pedro Carneiro (percussion), Miguel Azguime (live electronics), Jean-Sébastien Béreau (conductor)
Notes
(ThS)inking Survival Kit
Premiere
2010/Jul/06
COLF - City of London Festival
Mercers Hall
London
United Kingdom
Sond'Ar-te Electric Ensemble, Frances M. Lynch (soprano), Pedro Carneiro (percussion), Miguel Azguime (live electronics), Jean-Sébastien Béreau (conductor)
