“... of being numerous” for us opened up a space in which to affirm this tension, this challenge of being (singular and) numerous. In the name of this practice we left the subject of the preposition open to allow numerous possibilities to resonate: the challenge, the joy, the danger, the fragility, the grace, the condition, the difficulty, the meaning, the reality, the roots, the boun- daries, the promise, ..., ..., ... of being numerous.
Performing “... of being numerous” we would try to be as detached, as much by ourselves, as possible. we would all be involved in the same kind of things: playing a “phrase” (some “phrases”) with some mostly longish, quiet sounds; articulate a slow, but regular pulse with 2 little stones; reading some words, or syllables or letters from a poem one brought or knew by heart (just to oneself); humming a melody, so quietly, that maybe only oneself would hear it; making a very soft, continuous, spectrally complex frictional sound (paper on paper, stone on stone, paper on wood, finger on skin, ...); moving dry leaves from one bowl to another, trying to make no sounds; etc.; or just being silent, listening inward rather than outward.
Colectivo maDam: David Area (synthesizer, voice and objects), Joan Espasa (bass clarinet, voice and stones), Tomás Gris (melodica, voice and objects), Rubén (sinewaves, voice and objects), Víctor (singing bowls, voice and objects), Guillermo Torres (flugelhorn, voice and stones)
Guest: Antoine Beuger (flute, voice and objects)
Program: Antoine Beuger: silent harmonies in discrete continuity (fifth music for marcia hafif), series I. Performer: Electronic Music.
“Silence is not an acoustical phenomenon
silent harmonies: three-minute sounds, stationary, quiet, pure waves
each sound has eight frequencies, each from a different octave range
there is silence where depth disappears and expanse emerges: on the surface
in discrete continuity: one soud goes, another one comes and on it goes, step by step, continuously
still waters are said to run deep,
but in reality it is the imperturbability of their surface
that impresses us.
for marcia hafif:
american painter of monochrome paintings
and a quiet person’s silence hides nothing deep -
it hides nothing at all.”
Played by Jurg Frey (clarinet), Sarah Hughes (e-bow zither), Dominic Lash (contrabass) and Radu Malfatti (trombone). A 2 CD presenting 4 pages from Antoine Beuger 2003 composition which ingeniously adapts the musical form of the round to Wandelweiser music. Beautiful recording in a church in Oxfordshire, UK from June 2012.