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Concerto for
Voice (moods IIIb) is written
as to explore what happens when you place a close-up, amplified, super
individualistic, self trained voice in front of a dynamic orchestra. As both a
composer and performer, I was thrilled to get a chance to do this in 2005,
writing a similar piece commissioned by Radio France. With a new piece based on
the same ideas, I am establishing a tradition now, which I frankly don’t see an
end to, as there is so much new uncover in such a meeting. The piece must be
experienced live, because the distance and volume of sound sources is
unpredictable, it does something to the way we expect orchestra music to sound.
And it is showing a soloist in a role which is not necessarily loud and
virtuoso, and it is a piece where the singer, being an instrumentalist in this
setting, is on equal terms with the other musicians.
There is no text or
narratives behind the choice of voice and mouth sounds, there’s no reference to
literature in this piece even though the piece has a metaphorical element
traditionally connected to speech and semantics: the type writer, symbolically
(and audibly!) connected to the singer as if trying to write down her
ungraspable uttering.
In “Concerto for
Voice” the orchestral part is thoroughly composed, whereas the voice solo part
follows, with few exceptions of some sustained pitched notes, guidance and
frames for improvisation. “Concerto for Voice” is also dealing with spectral
harmonies (hence the subtitle “moods”, following a series of pieces dealing
with spectral thinking) and heritage from ‘concréte sound’ thinking, but is
over all a concerto form where the voice and the orchestra are in constant
contrast to or in coherent relation to each other.
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