Thanks to Ilan Volkov, the director of Tectonics Festival in Tel Aviv, I got to work with two unique performers over the past few weeks: soprano Keren Motseri (who gave the Israeli premiere of You’ll drown, dear) and dancer Yuli Kovbasnian (with whom I explored my new persona as an improviser in a new show that we developed together). Tel Aviv seems to be bursting with creative energy these days, and I’m already looking forward to coming back in the Spring.
Cordelia and I just got back from the second residency for Like flesh - our opera-in-development. This time around we were very fortunate to have cellist Severine Ballon, dancer Vinicius Salles, and bass Jimmy Holliday join our team, which included movement director Joseph Alford, soprano Juliet Fraser, and actress Carolina Valdés. Footage from the open session performance at the Britten Pears Studio coming soon!
Leading up to the premiere on September 9th, Durand just released two short videos documenting my work on Heave over the past few months. They include some beautiful footage from the gardens at Royaumont, as well as footage from recording sessions at IRCAM. Take a look HERE.
For the past year Cordelia Lynn and I have been developing ideas for our joint opera Like flesh. Thanks to support from Snape Maltings and the European Network of Opera Academies (ENOA), we were able to design two residencies to explore some of the core themes in the opera, and to build a dream-team of artists to explore with: movement director Joseph Alford, soprano Juliet Fraser, voice and movement artist Elaine Mitchener, and actress Caroline Valdès. The first residency ended this weekend and it was nothing short of inspiring. The second residency in October will end with a public open session, so keep an eye out!
It was a great honor to be programmed on ManiFeste's "Monologues" concert at the Pompidou Center alongside Franck Bedrossian and Rebecca Saunders. You'll drown, dear (IRCAM Cursus 2017) opened the show, and received a lovely review from Michèle Tosi. Read it HERE.
This weekend Augustin Muller and I were invited to Royaumont to sit on a panel with Jean-Philippe Wurtz, the artistic director of the Voix Nouvelles Festival. We spoke about our new project HEAVE (a Royaumont/IRCAM/Ulysses co-commission), and also had a chance to test the electronics at the Carré Magique - Royaumont's unique "sonic garden" - where the work will be premiered in September. Special thanks to sound engineers Martin Antiphon and Manuel Poletti for enduring many hours in the garden with us on this unusually hot spring weekend!
It's been three years since my last visit to Prague, and five years since I lived there as a Fulbright fellow. What an honor to be invited back, this time by the Prague Spring Festival. The Martinu voices choir sounded great, the audience was warm, the acoustics were perfect... It felt like a real homecoming.
And... I'm back at the Cité International des Arts! This time for a 6-month composition residency to work on pieces for Exaudi and Diotima. Paris keeps pulling be back.
I've spent the past week at IRCAM with computer music designer Augustin Muller. We are taking our first steps towards developing the electronics for our new work for Exaudi. This included a recording session in the anechoic chamber of some very delicate earthy sounds. It also included a special visit from playwright Cordelia Lynn, who had just finished the second half of the text!
