Annea Lockwood transforms the farting of salmon and the sounds of the river into enchanting music

It is In the church of Viitasaari, going carnal!

Let’s practice first Liza Limin Sex Magic – part of the work Throat Song and then Annea Lockwoodin and the flute player Claire Chasen Elwha-from a work whose soundscapes of “salmons farting” and the horny calls of deer extend over four octaves.

It’s great to watch contemporary music superstar Claire Chase dash around the church and master seven different flutes, and watch world-renowned 86-year-old composer Annea Lockwood close her eyes and listen.

So – really – listens.

Lockwoodia is said to be “the best listener in the world”. He has listened, recorded and edited into music burning pianos, shattering glass, earthquake sounds sent by seismologists and now the revival of the Elwha River near Seattle on the west coast of the United States.

Sounds promising, very promising.

But before the concert, luckily, we also get an interview with this power duo.

Anne Lockwood was born in New Zealand in 1939 and exploded his consciousness in 1961 at the Darmstadt Contemporary Music Festival in Germany.

The program included a performance featuring an early influence of minimalism LaMonte Young made music by moving chairs and tables on stage.

“It was my Saul meets Jesus on the road to Damascus moment. That’s when I realized how a hugely rich sound world can open up with small means.”

He began to listen to the richness of individual voices in a new way. It led, for example, to Glass Music concerts, in which various glass surfaces were rattled and broken.

“What an enormously rich spectrum of sounds is created from different glasses! I got rid of breaking glasses after just a few performances, though. It was too clichéd.”

According to him, burning the pianos was not a provocation.

“I needed multi-toned burning sounds. Old decommissioned upright pianos are excellent because they have a lot of wood materials, metal and cavities that burn in different ways. Burning an upright piano also looks fascinating.”

Lockwood edited his field recordings electronically already in the 1960s.

“Composer Herbert Elbertin an early electronic work Epitaph for Aikichi Kuboyama was another blast of consciousness. After that, the world was open!”

He is interested in “sound maps”, which he has made along many rivers by combining field recordings, their electronic processing and the contribution of live musicians.

And it was at this point that he was contacted by contemporary music superstar flutist Claire Chase.

Chasen the key experience was seeing the flute and the light reflected from it as a small child at a symphony concert. From then on, he played the flute until he got one as a present for his 8th birthday.

New music opened up for him Edgar Varèsen cult work Density 21.5 from 1936. In his own Density project, he now commissions works from contemporary composers one per year until 2036 and until the centenary of Varésen’s work.

“I want each piece to require something from me that I haven’t been able to do before. Annea’s challenge was the biggest. She wanted to make me a composer!” Chase is horrified.

The two traveled to the dam-removed and restored Elhwa River and made field recordings (a salmon researcher helped with recordings of salmon farts).

Lockwood edited the recordings into soundscapes, to which Chase composed flute parts, which in turn inspired Lockwood’s new soundscapes. The duo also decided to record everything.

“And that’s how you became the greatest composer,” Lockwood praises Chase heartily.

Concert is approaching, but before that Lockwood wants to give HS readers a beautiful instruction about listening to each of your surroundings as “music.”

“If you have a yard or a park nearby, try to find half an hour, be completely silent and listen to everything intensely. First notice the sounds coming from further away and notice how far your hearing is enough. Then focus on the nearest sounds. As you concentrate, you will hear more and more,” he promises.

“And when you do the same thing again the next day, things have changed.”

Self at the beginning of the concert, a five-minute clip with an ocarina and a human voice doesn’t say much Liza Limin 50 minutes long Sex Magic – from the work, which, according to the composer, deals with “the sacred eroticism of women’s history”.

Of course, it will be the intense opening fanfare of the festival.

Named after Lockwood, Chase and the Elwha River itself Elf-the composition completely enchants me. Surround soundscapes are endlessly sensual and surround listeners from all sides Timo Kurkikankaan as a wonderful realization of the controlled twenty sound points.

Chase starts from the pulpit and plays seven different flutes at seven different points, from a small piccolo to a double bass flute that is much taller than him.

The intense and charismatic Chase is a true volcano of emotions as a performer.

Evening at the end, there will be a small surprise performance in front of the Lyhty restaurant, whose performers even have charisma comparable to Chase.

by Heinz-Juhani Hofmann great I/I/I-opera’s multi-problematic young Didi Hakkarainen (soprano Annika Fuhrmann) continues his adventures Didi vs. the world in the piece for soprano and electric guitarist Jukka Kääräinen.

The small excerpt from the piece heard is funnier than the general appearance of the opera, although the Didi character has of course not gotten over her mental health problems.

The performance ended the first day of the Music Time festival excellently.