Heave (2018)
CHORAL | CHAMBER | ELECTROACOUSTIC 14:30
INSTRUMENTATION
soprano, mezzo-soprano, counter-tenor, tenor, baritone, bass
Heave, for six voices and electronics, was created in collaboration with playwright Cordelia Lynn, computer music designer Augustin Muller (IRCAM), and stage designer/director Aurélie Lemaignen. It was co-commissioned by Ircam-Centre Pompidou and Fondation Royaumont, with the support of the ULYSSES network, and developed at IRCAM during a nine-month residency while in residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris.
Heave received its world premiere by EXAUDI vocal ensemble at Festival Voix Nouvelles, Royaumont, 2018. It was originally created as a site-specific performance for Royaumont’s Carreé Magique, where the speaker array was seamlessly integrated into the site to create an augmented, shifting experience of the outdoors.
Heaving, breaking, stretching, crumbling. Heave is a work that questions the boundaries between matter; between skins. The text tells the story of growth: into and out of the earth; into one’s own body and memory. It also tells the story of growing apart: from a loved one; from an interconnected whole. It is through this juxtaposition of the human and non-human experience, of the visible, invisible, and magical that Heave strives to create an animate world.
More information about the work HERE (including score rental).
Read reviews in ResMusica, Olyrix, and Anaclase.
A solo version, created for soprano Juliet Fraser, is now available on the CD Spilled Out from Tangles from Huddersfield Contemporary Records.
“Heave superpose les séquelles de la parole sur une arborescence évocatrice des sons de la nature, rampant à même le sol tel un rhizome façonné par l’informatique musicale. Épurée, la scénographie visuelle et auditive fait embarquer pour un voyage d’une poésie délicate, discrètement teintée de la mélancolie de l’absence, et démontre magistralement que l’émotion peut très bien faire l’économie de la poix sentimentale sans que la diététique se cloître dans l’intellectualité austère.”
WORLD PREMIERE
Fondation Royaumont, Festival Voix Nouvelles, France, 9 September, 2018.
EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble. James Weeks, conductor; Augustin Muller, RIM; Martin Antiphon, sound engineer; Aurélie Lemaignen, staging.
RADIO BROADCAST
Le concert de soir, France Musique, 8 January, 2019
footage of the premiere of Heave at Royaumont
A short video about the creation of Heave (Durand Salabert Eschig, 2018-08-27)
