This spring Song Circus did a tour with our project «Birds», a sensual and imaginative narrative performance for children inspired by the birdlife around us!
With: Song Circus, Odd Børge Sagland (percussion) and Marianne Stenerud (storyteller)
Is it possible to mix spectral music with Pauline Oliveros and Salvatore Sciarrino? According to Bjørnar Hsbbestad and nyMusikk, we did so when we performed Pascale Criton’s music for the first time in Norway in May, together with violinist Silvia Tarozzi and cellist Deborah Walker.
According to 5 against 4 it was a nice experience!
«All five performers were involved in Soar II, receiving its world première, and to a large extent the music inhabited a related soundworld to the solo pieces. Close unisons abounded, notes jarring and buzzing in close proximity like same-charged magnetic poles repulsing each other. It was deeply mesmeric, exhibiting an incredible sense of simultaneous tension and rest; yet in almost every other respect the piece was similarly liminal, continuously caught between unison and dissonance, movement and stasis, noise and breath, and at the last, between sound and silence, voices and instruments alike interacting with air to create only the idea of sound, an idea made real in our imaginations. Absolutely stunning.»
What to say, except for feeling thankful? What a lovely review!
«One of the most beautiful works I heard took place at Kulturkirken Jakob in an afternoon concert given by the outstanding vocal quartet Song Circus (who had been so impressive at this year’s Only Connect festival).»
….
«– the work, including hardanger fiddle performed by Britt Pernille Frøholm, was breathtakingly immediate, creating drama from the most microscopic of sounds and gestures. Soft, close singing was interspersed with articulated breaths and a plethora of tiny vocal tics and twitches, many of which seemed almost involuntary. Although its language was, from one perspective, a broken-up network of minutiae strung together into a loose-woven tapestry, there was at the same time a sense that everything we were hearing had actually begun life as a changeless, eternal drone, which was being modulated and disrupted by the quartet’s vocal actions. At one extreme, Ulvo practically destroyed the fabric of the music later on via an outbreak of stubbornly persistent coughs, while at the other extreme, she united the singers into small concentrations that vaguely resembled chant. Though it was in its own way just as wildly experimental as the rest of the music during the opening weekend at Ultima 2019, Absence had a focus, an intensity and above all an elegance that set it apart.»
Read the whole review here: http://5against4.com/2019/09/20/ultima-2019-part-2/?fbclid=IwAR3fu_K8STZJ3BnLP0JZnt51_QEnXRCFXJVrKfxiRsfgrT0dJSSqxDqF_m0#more-36758
Er det mulig å blande spectral music med Pauline Oliveros og Salvatore Sciarrino? I følge Bjørnar Habbestad og nyMusikk, var det akkurat det vi gjorde, da vi, fiolinist Silvia Tarozzi (FR) og cellist Deborah Walker (FR) urframførte Pascale Critons musikk under Only Connect i mai. Det er første gang Pascal Criton og hennes musikk er fremført her til lands.
I følge «5 against 4» var det en god opplevelse!
«All five performers were involved in Soar II, receiving its world première, and to a large extent the music inhabited a related soundworld to the solo pieces. Close unisons abounded, notes jarring and buzzing in close proximity like same-charged magnetic poles repulsing each other. It was deeply mesmeric, exhibiting an incredible sense of simultaneous tension and rest; yet in almost every other respect the piece was similarly liminal, continuously caught between unison and dissonance, movement and stasis, noise and breath, and at the last, between sound and silence, voices and instruments alike interacting with air to create only the idea of sound, an idea made real in our imaginations. Absolutely stunning.»
Last weekend was the world premiére of our new performance «Graataralagjet», a new vocal song cycle and a themed concert based around one of Norway’s grisliest folk tunes. We have commissioned new works from Norwegian composers Therese Birkelund Ulvo and Nils Henrik Asheim, and together with us, as a guest musician, was the wonderful fiddle player Britt Pernille Frøholm.
Kulturkirken Jakob was the perfect stage, and Tove Kommedals visual installation became the immersive and expressive artwork we wished for. Nils Henrik Asheims and Therese Birkelund Ulvo have both composed music we will bring with us and perform a lot. The last piece in the Graataralagjet trilogy, Stones by Tyler Futrell, will be premiered in November, another beautiful piece of music! Thank you Thorbjørn Tønder Hansen and the Ultima festival team. You were professional to the fingertips!
5 of 5 stars in http://www.chaindlk.com:
«What you will actually hear here subtly takes sound beyond the confines and preconceived notions of what you’ve ever experienced before.»
«The best way of describing «Landscape» is an aural dreamworld that sometimes mixes natural ambient with snippets of other-worldly elements, and also whispers. Vocally, the composition ranges from onomatpoetic utterings to seductive, siren-like glissandoes.»
…..
«I readily admit that most of my interest in avant-garde modern music stemmed from an earlier time when I was ever so curious about music that did not conform to convention and transcended traditional form. ‘Anatomy of Sound’ however has rekindled a spark for this kind of thing, being some of the best «new music» I’ve heard in a long, long while.»
Music Theater / Live Art Theater.
Studies of the Female Breast as a Meaning-Bearing Universe.
Contributors:
Song Circus (ensemble) / Laura Bowler (composer) / Lavinia Murray (playwright) / Kate Lane (designer/scenographer) / Valentina Ceschi (director)
Sebastian Wemmerløv has reviewed Graatarslagjet på scenekunst.no:
«On one hand, it was possible to interpret the piece as descriptive and programmatic, with sounds of the inhospitable wind over the frozen water, the cries of a human or an animal, and the coughing and wheezing of drowning people or ghostly spirits. On the other hand, it could just as easily be perceived as a disinterested nature, completely detached from a descriptive or empathetic human perspective. The sound of the Hardanger fiddle subtly wove itself into the vocal textures with delicate and gentle overtones and harmonics, sensitively played by Britt Pernille Frøholm. Long, delicate, and aching tonal landscapes were occasionally interrupted by subtle yet sometimes forceful vocal gestures.
It was also striking how the relationship between time and timelessness almost dissolved. Densifications and intensifications of textures and gestures, as if something wanted to break through, gave a sense of linear, dramaturgical development over time. At the same time, it also felt as if the piece unfolded outside of time, where the physical and the ethereal, presence and absence, event and non-event coexisted simultaneously in a long, frozen moment.»
Live art theatre.
The project is centring around western society’s unarticulated relationship with the women’s breast, through research about the female breast in literature, art, politics, history, popular culture and through transcriptions of interviews with women who have had cosmetic and medical based breast surgery.
Song Circus (ensemble) / Laura Bowler (komponist) / Lavinia Murray (dramatiker) / Kate Lane (designer / scenograf) / Valentina Ceschi (regissør)
I vår og i sommer har jeg jobbet med et vakkert, lite prosjekt inspirert av fuglelivet på fem steder i Rogaland. Over en periode på fire uker har jeg gjort opptak, og med utgangspunkt i disse utviklet verket «Fugler». Musikken er skapt i samarbeid med Song Circus, Britt Pernille Frøholm (fele) og Odd Børge Sagland (perkusjon). Fugler fremføres som et konsertverk, i samarbeid med fortellerkunster Marianne Stenerud skapes et musikalsk fugleeventyr, i samarbeid med Hinterland skapes en kortfilm, og sammen med Nina Elisabeth Børke skapes et visuelt kunstverk, et lydlig kartsystem. Sondre Oldereide Michaelsen lager en kort doku om prosjektet.
Lydutdrag:
Song Circus are developing a fascinating new project, together with Laura Bowler, Lavinia Murray and Kate Land (UK) and cultural studies researcher Birgitta Haga Gripsrud (NO).
Together we are looking at the (un)articulated breast; through literature, history, art, religion, politics, psychology, popular culture, feminism, and social antropology.
The project will have shape as a music installation / music theatre and will be premièred in autumn 2018.
Christmas Meditations in Bispekapellet, Stavanger:
We just discovered this live recording from our concert at Classical:NEXT this year. Enjoy!
And here our short film Anatomy of Sound:
The video is available in different formats and can be customized for screening. The music is originally recorded and produced in Auro 3D.
Contact for screening: Song Circus / Liv Runesdatter – liv@songcircus.no
Concept & idea: Liv Runesdatter and Maja Friis
Film director: Maja Friis
All sound performed by Song Circus (www.songcircus.no)
Music composed by: Ruben Sverre Gjertsen
Sound production: 2L / Lindberg Lyd (Morten Lindberg and Jørn Simenstad)
Producer: Liv Runesdatter
Cinematographer: Anders Nydam
Visual consultant: Lys og Trolddom / Rasmus Møbius
SONG CIRCUS
Artistic director: Liv Runesdatter
Vocalists: Stine Janvin Motland, Anita Kaasbøll, Liv Runesdatter, Eva Bjerga Haugen and Maria Norseth Garli
Conductor: Jonas Rogne Skartveit
Logo design: Werksemd / Nina Elisabeth Børke
HOORAY!
This time, it’s the Swedish publication Nutida Musik reviewing our album:
Five of five stars in The Scotsman!
“the three ensembles closed with a blisteringly visceral account of the budgeoning dissonances of Louis Andriessen’s notorious De Staat. It proved a fittingly powerful, provocative and confident, internationally focused conclusion to sound’s thrillingly ambitious weekend.”
http://www.scotsman.com/…/music-review-sound-festival-aberd…
Vi kom over dette konsertopptaket i dag, fra Song Circus sin konsert under Classical:NEXT i Rotterdam i mai. Vel bekomme!
Og her filmen Anatomy of Sound, som jeg laget sammen med regissør Maja Friis (DK):
The video is available in different formats and can be customized for screening.
The music is originally recorded and produced in Auro 3D.
Contact for screening: Song Circus / Liv Runesdatter – liv@songcircus.no
Concept & idea: Liv Runesdatter and Maja Friis
Film director: Maja Friis
All sound performed by Song Circus (www.songcircus.no)
Music composed by: Ruben Sverre Gjertsen
Sound production: 2L / Lindberg Lyd (Morten Lindberg and Jørn Simenstad)
Producer: Liv Runesdatter
Cinematographer: Anders Nydam
Visual consultant: Lys og Trolddom / Rasmus Møbius
SONG CIRCUS
Artistic director: Liv Runesdatter
Vocalists: Stine Janvin Motland, Anita Kaasbøll, Liv Runesdatter, Eva Bjerga Haugen and Maria Norseth Garli
Conductor: Jonas Rogne Skartveit
Logo design: Werksemd / Nina Elisabeth Børke
FREEDOM O(R) SPEECH
I Solisti del Vento, Red Note Ensemble, Song Circus
Actor: Jan Decleir and Simon Callow
Conductor: Etienne Siebens
fossite
Angela Merkel is a Wagner enthusiast, Barack Obama listens to Bob Dylan and Vladimir Putin enjoys Russian folk music. Still sounds are seldomly a point of concern for politicians. But if choirs can topple a government and symphonies can discourage an army, then music is more than purely pleasure. In ancient China the first emperor of a new dynasty determined which pitch was in harmony with the cosmos. And in his ‘Republic’ Plato regarded only Phrygian and Doric scales to be politically correct: all others threatened the ideal civilisation.
Dutch composer Louis Andriessen took Plato’s text as the initial concept for a cantata which forms a fist against rigid forms of government with energetic rhythms and recalcitrant chords. Andriessen’s ‘De Staat’ (The Republic) is both a accusation against the soulless and suffocating totalitarianism which Plato defends and a reflection on his musical convictions. Andriessen seems to say with his explosive minimalism: everything a composer puts to paper is filled with political, social or religious meaning.
Thereof Mauricio Kagel was also convinced. Everything this Argentinian German composed is a politically tinged mockery of musical history. In ‘Der Tribune’ (The Tribune) – an audio play for political orator, marching sounds and speakerphone – Kagel twists Andriessen’s rhythmical tightness to a virtuously absurdist monologue, soaked with comical rage and disdainful indignation. Demagogy, misleading the people and egotripping are merged with marching band music with oom-pah-pah coppers and tickling woods.
We place both these analyses of the political system – one razor sharp, the other viciously joyful – right next to each other. A new text by writer Dimitri Verhulst to Kagel’s music hurrays the dawn of a new political age with malicious merriment: ‘The future beckons, the sky is clearing and even the roses are turning blue. Tomorrow, tomorrow is mine and yours.’
A production of I Solisti del Vento in collaboration with Red Note Ensemble, Song Circus and Sound Festival with concerts Scotland, Belgium and The Netherlands
With the kind support of: Aberdeen City Council’s Made in Aberdeen programme, Creative Scotland National Lottery Funding, Music Norway and Arts Council Norway
“An extraordinary work. What impressed me immediately is the immensely detailed and microtonal spectrum. A world full of nuances and small gestures that make up one giant musical construction in twelve movements. One can dwell endlessly in this strange world. Complex, and above all utterly beautiful.”
http://www.vitalweekly.net/1059.html
Tord F Paulsen (Holt&Paulsen) visited the Sound of a Cage Triennial and made us this nice little trailer:
Sound of a Cage 2016 – Trailer from Liv Runesdatter on Vimeo.
I am curating Sound of a Cage. The triennale is build up around the legacy of John Cage and his fellows, and it combines presentations of art, music, design, performance, workshops, lectures and topical discussions. This third edition of set focus on sound poetry. Sound of a Cage take place at Tou Scene on 6.- 8. of October. Welcome to Stavanger!
«A simply unique performance by Song Circus on this album, “Anatomy of Sound”. Years of preparation is presented to us this incredible piece, and in such an exemplary manner. This piece requires an incredible amount of these five vocalists. There is alternately sung and spoken, but the human voice is also used by all other means, literally as an instrument. From whisper soft to icy raw and between all possible nuances, an unreal diverse spectrum of tone colours. A whole fairytale; poetic, terrifying and ghostly time. As a musical poem in which each note will be extremely detailed in the spotlight. Gjertsen’s music sounds remarkably transparent, and his musical language very detailed and full of nuances. This is music that begs to be listened extremely concentrated. Only then his world reveals itself fully…»
Listen to the music: http://phonofile.link/anatomy-of-sound
Hybrid SACD and Pure Audio Blu-ray: https://shop.klicktrack.com/2l/1001457
Vocal excerpts from ANATOMY OF SOUND by Song Circus and 2L.
http://phonofile.link/vocal-excerpts-anatomy-of-sound
Pure Audio Blu-ray with 9.0 Auro-3D: https://shop.klicktrack.com/2l/1001457
In May, Song Circus participated in Classical:Next, the world’s most important industry gathering for classical music. It was the first time a Norwegian ensemble was selected as one of the six featured showcases. Over the course of three days, we met with around twenty institutions, agencies, production companies, journalists, and ensembles within the classical music industry. A hectic schedule of seminars and meetings, along with our showcase success at DeDoelen, gave us plenty to smile about!
Classical:NEXT om Song Circus:
Norwegian ensemble Song Circus is comprised of five vocalists, and the music they make is thrilling, demanding, and light-years removed from traditional choral music. Thick vocal textures are interwoven with washes of digital sound. A singer’s whisper morphs into a full-throated roar, then yields to near-subliminal mouth percussion. Just as unique, Song Circus’ stage setup surrounds the audience, positioning them within the ensemble so they can act as co-conspirators in the performance.
Under Classical:NEXT presenterte vi også vår splitter nye musikkfilm «Anatomy of Sound»:
Song Circus had an amazing and busy week during Rotterdam in May, attending seminars and meetings, establishing new collaborations, booking concerts and performing a successful showcase concert in deDoelen! Thank you for inviting us Classical:NEXT!
Upsweep-Whistle-Bloop at Nordischer Klang, Greifswald. Concept, visuals and music by Jasmijn Visser and Stine Janvin Motland. Performed and created with Song Circus (Liv Runesdatter, Signe Irene Stangborli Time, Anita Kaasbøll, Eva Bjerga Haugen, Stine Javel), Costumes by Altinstark(Esra Altin, Samy Celler) photos by Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky
