Pablo Chin on Fonema's debut album

It has always struck me that Mauricio Pauly and I took coincidentally similar paths in our compositional careers. We left our native Costa Rica at different times but around the same age, both to study composition in Miami. We later continued our journeys up north, in Boston and Chicago, respectively. Now Mauricio lives in Manchester, UK, while I settled down in Chicago, but we have coincided again multiple times in international festivals, such as the Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt in 2010 and 2012. Our music has also matured along the way. Fonema Consort's debut album (partially funded by the Costa Rican Association of Musical Authors, ACAM, through their "Dotación Musical" grant), bears witness to this maturing process, and is comprised of the vocal chamber works Pauly and I have written.

The pieces on this CD showcase a wide range of texts and imagery, from references to Hieronymus Bosch in the poetry of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, to the mythology of Mesoamerica in the ancient Popol Vuh. The essence of these pieces comes from the experimental nature of their sound world, derived from the phonetic content of texts from various authors from the Americas.This results in a deep research on vocal and instrumental possibilities to match and extend the inherent sonic quality of words, and to find common ground between such diverse possibilities (e.g. plosives and tongue clicks in the voice, slap tones and key clicks in wind instruments, thimbles on a bass drum, muffled tones, brushed strings in a piano, etc.). This album thus crystallizes Fonema Consort’s mission to foster the exploration of vocal and linguistic possibilities in today’s music, in this case featuring a rich palette of non-traditional sounds derived from imaginative treatments of the texts chosen by Pauly and I.

This album is a joint collaboration of Fonema Consort, with Alex Inglizian of the Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) (recording, mixing and mastering), and Fonema's long term collaborators Benjamin Knight (art work and design), Marc Perlish (photography) and Etha Williams (musicologist).

The recording of the pieces took place in November and January, through six intense and adventurous sessions that included Mauricio's visit from the UK during the Polar Vortex days! Despite the record low temperatures, Fonema's musicians brought all their warmth into the making of the music.

The release of Pasos en otra calle consists of three dates in May: on the 6th the digital album will be available for download through New Focus Recordings; on the 7th, Fonema will present the CD in Costa Rica, with a concert at the Sala Maria Clara Cullel; on the 24th, Chicagoans will have the opportunity to acquire physical copies of the CD during a concert with the Outer Ear Festival at ESS.

Katie Young on Master of Disguises

Nina Dante: You chose a very intriguing text for this piece- dark yet playful. Can you share with us why you chose this text, and how you used it to shape the piece?

Katherine Young: The text is from Kelly Link’s short story “The Girl Detective” from the collection Stranger Things Happened. I have been returning and re-returning to Links’ work ever since 2005, when I first came read her writing, and her words find there way into many of my titles and pieces, actually.

The excerpt I used for this piece hones in on one of the story’s themes: loss and looking for something you don’t necessarily expect to find. Stemming from this text, Master of Disguises explores process, searching, elusiveness and instability.

ND: To fit with the theme of our concert "singing instruments", you gave the singers tape recorders to "play". Why did you chose this electronic device as a musical instrument, and what role does it play in the piece?

KY: The singers play the cassette players much like they would a percussion instrument. The clicks and clacks of the buttons create rhythmic motives and little grooves. There are also a lot of meanings people can read into the anachronistic (if I can say that, Parlour Tapes+ cassette players that could add richness of the music.

ND: Have you written for the voice before? If so, how does this piece compare to other works you have written with voice? Has there been an evolution in style, and what sparked it? If you haven't, how did you develop this particular style of writing for the voice? Is it inspired by any outside elements/materials? And did your voice writing influence how you wrote for the clarinet and saxophone?

KY: I had written for voice just a little before starting this piece - mostly song form. For Master, I had a lot of fun finding sounds that created links between the physically very different sound sources of the voice, the cassette players, and the reeds. Some of the vocal sounds came from work Nina and I did early on. I asked her to read/sing some of the text in a way that imitated some reed extended techniques I’d worked out with Emily and Will. And then some sounds began with the tape players and infected the voice and instrumental materials. So once I found my materials, the process was not about “writing for the voice” versus “writing for winds,” but more about building a sound world that explored the poetics of the sounds and the text.

Erin Gee on her Mouthpiece series

My paintings have neither objects nor space nor time nor anything—no forms. They are light, lightness, and merging, about formlessness, breaking down form.

—Agnes Martin

When we study the science of breath, the first thing / we notice is that breath is audible.

—Hazrat Inayat Kahn

Mouthpiece I (1999) was the first of the Mouthpiece series, which now consists of more than 25 pieces, and is based on non-semantic vocal sounds. The series began as a set for solo voice and now encompasses works for voice and orchestra, voice and large ensemble, opera and choir.

In the Mouthpiece series, the voice is used as an instrument of sound production rather than as a vehicle of identity. Linguistic meaning is not the voice’s goal.

The construction of the vocal text is often based on linguistic structure—vowel-consonant formation and the principle of the allophone—and is relatively quiet, with a high percentage of breath.

The Mouthpieces presuppose a state of listening. They engage physiology rather than psychology.

The Mouthpieces for chamber ensemble and voice map non-semantic vocal structures throughout the ensemble, expanding and refracting the articulatory possibilities of a single vocalist.

Alexander Sigman on Epiglottis

The Kingdom of Glottis

In 2012, I collaborated with the Croatian visual artist Damir Ocko on a video work entitled Spring. Layers of instrumental and electroacoustic music samples were combined with image and narration. The piece was exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris as part of a solo exhibition of Damir's called The Kingdom of Glottis.

Scored for two sopranos, flute(s), cello, contrabass, live electronics, and video, epiglottis was intended as a sort of convoluted commentary on Spring. As is described below, the vocal, instrumental, and electronic material was derived directly from the images and text of the video work.

epiglottis consists of three songs, separated by brief audio-visual interludes, and concluding with an A/V postlude, for a total duration of ca. 13-14 minutes. On the February 2014 concert, the second song will not be performed due to time constraints.

Image-Sound/Sound-Image

The visuals employed in Spring consist of footage of the Stromboli volcano in Italy at various levels of lava activity, as well a collection of contortions, balancing, and precarious conditions to which the human body may be subjected, filmed on a constructed black-box set.

Using an image processing and analysis program, I created several representative still images from the video, which were analyzed for color density levels. This data was then converted into (audio) spectral information and used to synthesize audio samples. In turn, the newly generated audio files were analyzed and re-synthesized into images. While the produced sounds themselves became the basic ingredients of the electronics component, the spectral data associated with these sounds determined the pitch content of the vocal and instrumental parts.

In the first two principal sections of Spring, a contortionist performs a series of complex, repeated motions:

These motions were transcribed (by hand), resulting in a collection of contours, of abstractions from the physical actions. Pairs of physical parameters were mapped to these contours, which were assigned to both voices and instruments. In effect, the performers reconstitute the anatomy, the moving parts of the human contortionist. Due to the changes in and rate of change of the parameter mapping and shifts in layer density, this "anatomy" takes on a volatile, fragile, and unpredictable character.

Text

The Spring narrator recites four poems that Damir Ocko himself wrote for the project. In epiglottis, I set three of these texts, as well as one that was originally intended for the video, but was ultimately discarded.

The first poem makes several allusions to resonance, ringing, melting, trembling, and cracking. The subsequent text consists of an "instruction manual" for constructing a vocalizing meat puppet. Poems 3 and 4 appear in the third song (entitled "Nickering"), and depict a schizophrenic state. Through the gradual increases in tempo, rate of change, intensity, and exchanging of texts between the singers in "Nickering," comprehensibility progressively diminishes, enabling the physicality, the sonic properties of the poetry, to percolate to the foreground.

Live Electronics

In the first song, the voices and instruments undergo live processing. Reflecting both the recurring imagery in the first poem and the Stromboli volcano footage, a resonant penumbra of varying harmonic content, density, and intensity surrounds the source-sounds.

Video

The video component consists of three of types of material: 1) moving images of the human contortionist; 2) still images derived from Spring; and 3) images "resynthesized" from the video-audio-video conversion process described and illustrated above.

Future Work

Besides presenting epiglottis in its entirety (to occur during the 2014-2015 season), I am planning to utilize this "song cycle" as the basis of a one-act chamber opera. Prior to Spring, I contributed to Ocko's 2010 video The Moon shall never take my voice—"three songs for muted voice and various sounds"—a sort of song cycle in its own rite. The Moon was also presented on the Palais de Tokyo exhibition last year.

It would be of great interest in the chamber opera context to integrate themes, images, and texts proper to both video works, expand the epiglottis instrumentation, and incorporate lighting and staging.

Pablo Chin – Estrada's graphic methods, Breton's surrealism

After nearly a year of research and immersion into the musical world of Julio Estrada, I could not help but draw connections between Estrada's use of graphics and transcription to compose, and the surrealist thoughts of André Breton as stated in his Surrealist Manifesto.

In surrealist expression, the image is at the center of things, triggered by a “spark” (inspiration) that, based on its beauty (according to Breton’s manifesto), defines the value of the image. The spark, and the image itself reach a higher state of emotion and intensity during states of low consciousness; according to Breton, “[man] cannot chase them away; for the will is powerless now and no longer controls the faculties.” Thus, the challenge is to record as many images as possible while in this state, and in the highest possible resolution. Of these images, Breton said he “could easily trace their outlines. Here again it is not a matter of drawing, but simply of tracing.”

Estrada’s graphic method of composition, developed after Yuunohui, can be thought of as means to trace inner impulses. His primary concern when composing is to capture and express sounds as they occur in his imagination, unfiltered by traditional compositional methods in which intuitive impulses are controlled by rational laws and logic. He attempts to trace inner impulses through drawings that are later transcribed into music notation.

It is Estrada's hope that those who listen to his music will similarly rely on their intuitive faculties, as when he composed it, thus leading to a more creative and edifying listening experience.

Francisco Castillo Trigueros

Our upcoming concert with the Latino Music Festival is designed to showcase the unique compositional voices of Latin composers in Chicago. Do you find that your Latin heritage and culture manifests itself in your music? Or does your music strive to be free of cultural ties and influences?

Francisco Castillo Trigueros: I was raised in Mexico in an ethnically diverse environment. The prevailing self-identification of Mexican culture as “Mestiza”, or mixed, played an important role in my development. Rooted in both pre-Hispanic and European civilizations, and most recently influenced by American trends, Mexico is a hybrid culture in which many influences have converged to create new and unique traditions. My upbringing exacerbated this tendency. From a young age I was submerged in a multi-cultural philosophy. I was taught Spanish and English simultaneously. I was enrolled in a Japanese music school at the same time as in private classical piano lessons with a Asian-Mexican teacher, learned Latin-American and Spanish Guitar, all while being exposed to local and international music in the media. This diversity and the hybridity that result from it intrigue me and they are something I want to share through my creative work.

In my own work I have looked beyond Mexico and have worked with music and instruments from other geographical regions (see: http://franciscocastillotrigueros.com/music#Prisma). My diverse background has informed my post-nationalist position. Ironically, while I’m not interested in a nationalist aesthetic, through my intercultural work I’m emulating a cultural phenomenon that occurred in Mexico.

I don't believe that music can be free from cultural ties and influences, but we shouldn't expect these influences to always be constrained by geographical or racial motivations.

Was there a seminal piece of music in your past that lit the compositional spark in you? What was it about this piece that captivated you?

FCT: Absolutely! When I was 15 I discovered Bela Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra in a middle-school class. We had to listen to the piece, analyze the form, and some of the pitch collections that Bartok used. Not only was I captivated by the amazing energy and unique sounds in the piece but I also discovered that there were beautiful chords and structures different to those I had encountered up to that point.

Fonema Consort is fascinated with the role of the voice in new music. How do you approach writing for the voice? Does its inherent qualities and associations change or influence your musical language?

FCT: Some of my favorite new music is vocal music! In my own music two of the voice's inherent qualities and associations affect my musical language:

1) The hyper-emotionality that having a singer on-stage involves.
2) The additional layer of meaning that including a text introduces.

I try to play with the emotional connotations that having a singer on-stage brings. I tend to compose for a super-objective singer, every once in a while allowing bursts of emotion. (See: http://franciscocastillotrigueros.com/music#Mestizo)

The meaning of the chosen text can be emphasized or obfuscated by the music it is set to, and by the emotional affect by which it's delivered. This additional layer opens up many dramatic possibilities, normally absent in instrumental music, that really interest me.

In Absimo azul, floreciente the text is mainly recited. This allows for a cleaner narrative. The music I composed is more like incidental music, something that surrounds the text, creating a kind of emotional mist around it.

Tomás Gueglio Saccone

Our upcoming concert with the Latino Music Festival is designed to showcase the unique compositional voices of Latin composers in Chicago. Do you find that your Latin heritage and culture manifests itself in your music? Or does your music strive to be free of cultural ties and influences?

Tomas Gueglio Saccone: It’s really hard to tell…if the question refers to the presence of Latino topoi or programs, my music does not really feature them. On the other hand, back in Buenos Aires I would listen to quite a fair amount of tango and also took part in a group of Improv-Prog-Argentine-Folklore so maybe some of that exposure and experiences remain a part of my musicking at a deeper level, but (again) it’s hard to tell.

Was there a seminal piece of music in your past that lit the compositional spark in you? What was it about this piece that captivated you?

TGS: I can’t pinpoint one specific piece. It’s more like a whirlwind of pieces. I began in music as a rock (and then) blues (and then) jazz guitar player, so once I got to school and began my training in composition I was a little bit overwhelmed by the constant exposure to music that I had no idea existed. I can list some of the pieces that I remember had an impact on me and therefore tried to imitate when I was taking my first steps in composition. In no particular order: Mendelsohn’s Variations Serieuses, Messiaen‘s Louange à l’inmortalité de Jésus, Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna and the Nonsense Madrigals, Petrouska, Bartok’s Music for Strings, percussion and celesta, Vortex Temporum, Ockeghem’s Missa Prolationum, O’King, Feldman’s Neither…Of course my relationship with those pieces changed over the years, but I remember they had –even if temporarily - a strong impact on me in my early days as a composer.

Fonema Consort is fascinated with the role of the voice in new music. How do you approach writing for the voice? Does its inherent qualities and associations change or influence your musical language?

TGS: I have three pieces with voice, and the way it is used is quite different for all three cases. In …Pellicanz (the piece you will be performing as part of the LMF) the voice works as another instrument partaking with the violin and piano in a rather uniform texture with sudden and sporadic bursts of spoken text. In Enfants de mon Silence the voice is used more traditionally, in a somehow “ravelian” fashion and in …I begli occhi the technique employed is a “sprachgesangish” recitative of sorts. These different approaches are more a response to the text employed in each case than to a pre-existing musical need or idiosyncratic treatment of the voice: the first, a sentence of surreal scent, the second a Paul Valéry poem and the third texts from Gesualdo madrigals. So I guess for me it is “prima le parole” and figure out what to do with the voice later...

Andrés Carrizo

Our upcoming concert with the Latino Music Festival is designed to showcase the unique compositional voices of Latin composers in Chicago. Do you find that your Latin heritage and culture manifests itself in your music? Or does your music strive to be free of cultural ties and influences?

Andrés Carrizo: I certainly don't consciously think of my cultural heritage as I'm writing, though I certainly don't consciously seek to shake it either! The anxiety of influence, be it artistic or cultural, is something that every creator has to deal with, particularly in this context that prizes "originality" seemingly above all else. But it also seems like folly, and one that's caused me a lot of frustration in the past: how do you rid yourself of the things and experiences that have shaped you? You can't, and to try and do it is to shoot yourself in the foot.

As far as my Latin heritage is concerned, it's a tricky thing, because there's an expectation that your music will somehow reflect a specific part of your identity, when identity (musical and cultural) is an incredibly complex matter. The use of "exotic" sounds as representative of Latin culture is certainly not something I wish to communicate, primarily because that's not something that's exclusively me. I certainly grew up listening to salsa, Panamanian folk music, bachata, merengue, bolero... you name it. It's definitely part of who I am, and I know it's affected me compositionally in an infinity of ways. But I also grew up listening to jazz, to classical music, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Piazzolla, and a number of other types of music. Yet I don't consciously seek to emulate these influences either, and they're as much a part of who I am musically and culturally as the prototypical Latin musics are.

Out of pure curiosity: was there a seminal piece of music in your past that lit the compositional spark in you? What was it about this piece that captivated you?

AC: Though there are hundreds of pieces that have excited me, and propelled me forward, I'd have to answer that Bartók's "Augmented Fourths" Mikrokosmos piece was the one that really set me on the path. Not so much through the music itself (though I love Bartók!), but because I had to arrange it for an assignment, and the experience of handling the sonic material and shaping it in new ways was incredibly exciting.

Fonema Consort is fascinated with the role of the voice in new music. How do you approach writing for the voice? Does its inherent qualities and associations change or influence your musical language?

AC: I find writing for the voice to be *incredibly* challenging! For two reasons: the first is that I find it really difficult to set text. I don't tend to read texts musically (i.e. hear melodies as I'm reading), and so setting them to be sung instead of spoken often seems dangerously artificial to me. And the second reason is closely related to the first: I often find sung text to be unnatural, or cliché... I have a lot of trouble ridding myself of this impression. It's definitely tied to my literal understanding of the text: I enjoy opera, though much less so when I can understand the language it's being sung in. This is, naturally, not true 100% of the time, but it applies more often than not.

Because of this, it takes me a long time to decide on a text when writing for the voice. I usually decide on short texts, or on exploiting vocal phonemes musically rather than setting linguistically understandable material. And this I find very satisfying, particularly in combination with other instruments: the voice can be the greatest imitator, yet turn on a dime and acquire a sonic personality that's all its own in an instant.