2020-03-08_C-Barré_Neue-Vocalsolisten_Opéra_CREDIT_Pierre-Gondard_-16

Songs & Voices

Musical performance
© Pierre Gondard

The title of the play Five Songs (Kafka’s Sirens) refers to Franz Kafka’s short story The Silence of the Sirens. In his story, Kafka does not tell an alternative story to that of The Odyssey, a story that would say that the mermaids did not sing, but rather suggests a paradox: he insinuates a doubt of perspective, where perhaps lies what attracts Ulysses so much to approach mermaids…

It is to this paradoxical perspective that Songs & Voices refers. It is a form in which the poetic question is: what remains of the song when the voice disappears? This presence of song in the absence of a singing voice is the source of the sound research. And this first question calls for another: what is the voice without the song?

The exploration of these two dimensions has led to the creation of a vocal and instrumental musical journey between two extremes: extreme absence and extreme presence. A concert for six singers (soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass), ten instrumentalists (clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, accordion, percussion, mandolin, guitar, harp, cello, double bass) and live electronics.

Delegated production of Ensemble C Barré.
In coproduction with La Biennale di Venezia, ECLAT Festival, GMEM, GRAME, Ircam.
Commissioned the French State with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
Supported by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and Impuls neue Musik.

practical information

October 27th, 2023

 

PROGRAMME

Francesca Verunelli [Italy, 1979]
Songs & Voices | 1h15  Mondial creation
for vocal ensemble [soprano, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass] and instrumental ensemble [clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, accordion, percussion, mandolin, guitar, harp, cello, double bass]

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