Ocean Of Sound | Maria W Horn (live) / Croatian Amor (listening session)

• Maria W Horn — Lo! The Dim Shadows of the Night
(Live concert in 4DSOUND, world premiere)

Lo! The Dim Shadows of the Night is a piece by Maria W Horn for vocal duo and electroacoustic sound, originally composed for the spatial Monom 4DSOUND-system. Continuing the work started in her 2020 piece Dies Irae, Maria uses a modified form of traditional tonal harmonic language to invoke an uncanny middle ground between the classical western polyphonic vocal tradition and contemporary electronic music.

The piece uses a mixture of algorithmically generated synthesis, created within the SuperCollider framework, and nighttime recordings of the Night Jar bird made in Skuleskogen in Marias home-region in Västernorrland, Sweden.

The piece is sung by Ansis Bētiņš and Artūrs Čukurs from Riga, Latvia. The text is based on fragments from the hymn Ecce iam noctis.

In addition to the fixed electronic components of the music and the live vocal performance by Bētiņš and Čukurs, Maria joins the ensemble herself playing spatially processed pitched glasses, adding a ghostly shade to the dominant role of the human voices.

Ecce iam noctis tenuatur umbra
lucis aurora rutilans coruscat;
LO! the dim shadows of the night are waning;
radiantly glowing, dawn of day returneth;

CREDITS

Composition: Maria W Horn | Voice: Ansis Bētiņš | Voice: Artūrs Čukurs | Spatialized & produced by Monom Studios, commissioned by STUK - House for Dance, Image & Sound for Ocean Of Sound 2023 | In the context of: New Horizons | Dieric Bouts Festival, an initiative of KU[N]ST Leuven: www.diericboutsfestival.be | Special thanks to: Swamp Booking

• Croatian Amor — MONOM 2017
(Listening session in 4DSOUND, the artist does not play live)

Croatian Amor is a Danish composer of electronic music. He created this 4DSOUND work especially for the opening of Monom Studios in Berlin in 2017.

“I was invited to make this piece for the opening of Monom in Funkhaus Berlin. I remember it being very cold in the space, the heating had not been installed yet. Casimir Geelhoud and William Russell helped me, we wore all our clothes and worked long day and nights to prepare for the opening. Sometimes there was wine. It was an exciting experience to work with sound in this manner, lifelike. The piece was inspired by reading Michel ‘Serres Angels: A Modern Myth’ and by the city of Berlin, where I had stayed for a long periode the year before. It shaped like a repeated conversation and investigates how words change character depending on the surroundings." - Croatian Amor

CREDITS

Composition: Croatian Amor | Spatialised in Monom Studios with William Russell and Casimir Geelhoed | Duration: 42’