Norwegian Broadcasting Company
Photo: Kristoffer Øen Sigurd Fischer Olsen (b. 1976) Sserenades For female voice and ensemble (2015) 20’45’’ Sofia Jernberg (vocals) BIT20 Ensemble Peter Sebastian Szilvay (conductor) Recorded live at Bergen Kjøtt (Bergen Meat), 3. March 2016 (live/first performance) At the Borealis Festival, Bergen Sigurd Fischer Olsen was born in Bergen, Norway in 1976. He first studied composition at the Grieg Academy (Bergen) with Morten Eide Pedersen – later at Hochschule fur Musik, Freiburg with professor Mathias Spahlinger. Olsen is also working with new music drama in the group Ursus Productions, together with Lena Buchacz and Roar Sletteland. This production company works in a flat, non-hierarchic structure, and has produced Lohengrin (by Salvatore Sciarrino), artistic leader of Ursus Produksjoner. Performances include staging the opera Lohengrin by Salvatore Sciarrino, and Tycho Brahe (written by Ursus Productions). The company is now planning Liminal Face scheduled to premiere in the fall of 2018.
International Rostrum of Composers 2018
Norwegian Broadcasting Company
Sserenades
Sserenades is a piece where the sound of the vocalist melts together with the ensemble in an associative, nocturnal mood and where it is hard to distinguish the sounds from each other as we can experience it in the darkness. The vocalist becomes a hybrid creature where breath, singing, talking, and twittering occur together with similar sounds in the ensemble.
Quoting Morton Feldman, the composer states that "Instead of controlling the materials, I want to control the experience". This means that he does not want to calculate or plan systems or proportions, but develop the composition in an intuitive Sofia Jernberg – a sought after vocalist in a manner. “I wanted to create a dense world of sound, where variety of styles – was born in Ethiopia, grew events and objects adhere to their own inner logic, and where up in Sweden and Vietnam, now lives in Oslo. they respond rather than relate to each other.”
The unique voice capabilities of Sofia Jernberg are a major source of inspiration for the composition, but everything is carefully planned – not improvised. The process involves learning the sounds which are possible from the instruments and the voice, and explore how they can merge and transform reciprocally and communicate interactively. The employment of extended techniques in the instruments, is a means of attaining a tactile or sensual sound, which could inspire and sharpen the act of listening.
The title Sserenade implies night music. Being in the darkness – or just closing your eyes – makes you sharpen your ears; small sounds that we normally don’t listen to, are magnified, and reveal more details whether from insects and birds or wind blowing through trees in a forest, or from a peculiar voice blended with distorted instruments.
Looking back through music history, it may seem “appropriate” for a serenade to have seven movements, but here this number is quite random – a result of the different situations which occurred and thus produced this form naturally, with an open and mysterious ending. The double S might be considered a poetic signifier, a whispering sound where one would not expect it, a sensual or perhaps unsettling hesitation before the word and the music begins. In this piece, what seems insignificant might be important. (Lisssten!)
The Sserenade is (like its historic relatives), both vocal and instrumental, but the separation of voice and instrument is blurred. There are a few discernible words in the texture, but their meanings remain obscure. Fragments of sentences might seem like they describe something (“night”, “love”), or like they express impatience with another human (“why don’t you”), but they never materialize into a meaningful structure.
Again, it is more important how something is pronounced, than what is being said. The real meaning is in the texture of the voice and ensemble. One can sense impatience, resignation, aggression, and longing in the voice. One might hear animal sounds, breathing, growling, squeaking, roaring – from one individual or myriads of beings, as if they are in the same room, or perhaps, in the head of the listener…
International Rostrum of Composers 2018
Norwegian Broadcasting Company
Photo: Wolf James Kristine Tjøgersen (b. 1982) Mistérios do Corpo (2017) For amplified string quartet (and video) 09’13’’ (+ appl) Recorded live at the Borealis Festival in Bergen, Tower Hall at KODE 4, March 11th 2018 BIT 20 Quartet Jutta Morgenstern & Martin Schulz, violin; Liene Klava, viola; Agnese Rugevica, cello First performance: Only Connect Festival of Sound in Oslo, May 18th 2017 (Arditti Quartet) Kristine Tjøgersen (b.1982) is a clarinetist, composer and visual artist, who lives and works in Oslo, Norway. She has a Masters’ degree in clarinet (with Hans Christian Bræin), and studied composition (with Asbjørn Schaathun) at the Norwegian Academy of Music where she studied with Hans Christian Bræin, and did composition studies with Asbjørn Schaathun. She is currently pursuing a Masters’ degree in composition with Carola Bauckholt at the Anton Bruckner Universität in Linz, Austria. As a clarinetist, she performs with several contemporary music ensembles. She has collaborated with several composers and at both Norwegian and international music festivals. (For more details, see her web page http://kristinetjogersen.no/)
International Rostrum of Composers 2018
Norwegian Broadcasting Company
Her works occupy a middle ground between visual art and music, where image and sound are closely connected. She often finds her inspiration in small events that she finds poetic and builds structures with them. Tjøgersen has also made music for theatre and film as well as installations. Mistérios do corpo
«What if I wake up tomorrow, and the sounds are totally different from the usual ones? You have a particular expectation for sound. You know what sound a cup being set down on its saucer should make, or opening a door. And you don’t give it much thought. This is the inspiration of my work. That things can have a different sound. You will then experience sounds in a new way, and sense the world differently.”
Curiosity and playfulness might Hermeto Pascoal. Photo: Kevin Yatarola describe Kristine Tjøgersen’s attitude to composing. Some of her projects, like Mistérios do corpo, might be described as film music, an extremely detailed Mickey Mousing in order to highlight physical movements and the character of moving objects. But it is also perhaps a reverse film music – sounds which makes one question what one sees and hears, lets one see new aspects of reality, or turn it up-side-down. The music itself is as vivid and playful as the comments it makes on reality, and often quite virtuosic. Her attitude towards the visual material is always affectionate, whether she turns the Gumnaam Dance Song (1965) into a surreal experience, or makes a strange ballet of the face and lip movements of Sir David Attenborough.
The Mysteries of the Body is a performance exploring the sounds of the body of the unique Brazilian artist Hermeto Pascoal (b. 1936) – a legendary composer, instrumentalist, jazz performer, and a beloved figure in Brazil (through countless appearances on TV). This little “opera” for body and voice appeared on DVD in 2012, and Kristine Tjøgersen paid homage to the great Pascoal by transcribing the sounds into a surprisingly crisp and fresh string quartet.
Tjøgersen makes sounds which are not only a quirky comment to the moving images, but also a magic music capable of communicating with its own means – always with thorough consideration of the possibilities of the instruments and performers. But the combination of sound and picture will, of course, be quite different than the music alone. Some examples of Tjøgersen’s different video- projects (including a bit of Mistérios with the Arditti Quartet) can be found here: https://vimeo.com/user13327538
The original video from Hermeto Pascoal can be found on YouTube: Search for “mistérios do corpo”or go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPMPye2gg3o.
International Rostrum of Composers 2018