Fonema Premieres | Bethany Younge’s FEAST OF SELVES
May 27th, 2021
Bethany Younge’s FEAST OF SELVES for double bass, guitar, harpsichord, percussion and tape was premiered on April 29th, 2021 by the Experimental Sound Studio’s Quarantine Concerts.
“The music of Bethany Younge is raw. It deals with the body, the unique vocal expression and physicality of Younge herself, questions of identity when as much conditioning as possible is stripped away, and the bizarre theater that is born of all this. It is music that becomes desperately personal to the performer, as Younge composes with the essence of specific humans in mind. The brilliance of it all is its uroboric quality: in the end, Younge’s creations always circle back to be a representation of themselves.” – Nina Dante
Transcriptions from a recent interview with Younge –
On her work in general : “My music attempts to channel not-knowing on a cerebral level, the beauty of that; self-discovery; bodily-knowing (what I’m opposing to cerebral-knowing); noise; theatrical elements; bodily expressivity; things that are raw, crude; the beauty of things that are disgusting; and home-made jerky instruments. So these things connect me […] deeply to my work, […] when I can get my hands on things, trying things out myself, so it’s more psychical and visceral.”
On FEAST OF SELVES : “I was thinking a lot about the nature of the instrumentation, and how they all have these metallic components… so I was thinking a lot about metal… and I was thinking “how can you make a voice metal?”, because I wanted to make an electronic part that was from my voice, which is how I often do electronics, and I took vocal sound and I found some really great spectral-y plugins that make it sound very sparkly and ethereal, that kind of metallic sound, which was contrasted by the grinding metal of the instruments together. All these clashing sounds coming together in both the ensemble and my actual self in the voice electronic part. There’s moments where the sounds become frozen in time, whether the electronics or ensemble. These are little moments of confrontation.”
Fonema Premieres | Sterling Gray’s When Shirley Speaks
May 13th, 2021
Sterling Gray's When Shirley Speaks for voice, piano, percussion and tape was premiered on April 29th, 2021 by the Experimental Sound Studio's Quarantine Concerts. The work was inspired by the inimitable artistry and ballads of singer Shirley Horn. Performed by Nina Dante, David Cubek and Ryan Packard.
Sterling Gray’s When Shirley Speaks
Fonema Premieres | Luis Fernando Amaya’s Studies for “Bestiario: seis”
Luis Fernando Amaya’s Studies for “Bestiario: seis”
May 6th, 2021
This in-progress study for the newest work in Luis Fernando Amaya's "Bestiario" series was premiered on April 29th with the Experimental Sound Studio's Quarantine Concerts. Performed by Nina Dante, Dalia Chin, Emily Beisel, and Ryan Packard. Video edited by Pablo Chin.
Interview Series | Sterling Gray on his work and upcoming premiere with Fonema + ESS
April 22nd
In anticipation of Fonema’s closing concert of the 2020-2021 season and the world premiere of his newest work “When Shirley Speaks”, composer Sterling Gray speaks with us about the inspiring forces behind his creations, his new work, and his thoughts on the importance of ensuring that the new music scene is stylistically rich and of championing under-represented composers. Gray’s music is starry and meditative; his work is harmonically rich, inspired in part by the lush harmonies of jazz and the work of Morton Feldman. Join us on the 29th for the premiere with the ESS Quarantine Concerts!
ESS / TQC: https://ess.org/the-quarantine-concerts Composer Website: https://soundcloud.com/sterlzs
INTERVIEW SERIES | Bethany Younge on her WORK AND UPCOMING PREMIERE WITH FONEMA + ESS
April 15, 2021
Leading to Fonema’s closing concert of the 2020-2021 season, our close collaborator and friend composer Bethany Younge shares her thoughts on the inspiring forces behind her work, and her new piece for Fonema. Words from Nina Dante on Younge’s music: “The music of Bethany Younge is raw. It deals with the body, the unique vocal expression and physicality of Younge herself, questions of identity when as much conditioning as possible is stripped away, and the bizarre theater that is born of all this. It is music that becomes desperately personal to the performer, as Younge composes with the essence of specific humans in mind. The brilliance of it all is its uroboric quality: in the end, Younge’s creations always circle back to be a representation of themselves.” Join us on the 29th for the premiere with the ESS Quarantine Concerts!
Interview Series | Luis Fernando Amaya on his work and upcoming premiere with Fonema + ESS
April 8, 2021
Leading to Fonema's closing concert of the 2020-21 season, Mexican composer Luis Fernando Amaya shared his thoughts on his recent work, music inspiration, and his new piece for Fonema Consort to be premiered on 04.29 at the Experimental Sound Studio's The Quarantine Concerts in Chicago (live streaming).
ESS / TQC: https://ess.org/the-quarantine-concerts
Composer's website: https://www.luisfernandoamaya.com
David Cubek Curates | Interview with Richard Barrett + Revisiting Coïgitum
March 18, 2021
In the final of three interviews curated by David Cubek, Fonema chats with British composer Richard Barrett, and revisits his early work Coïgitum, which is a beloved piece in Fonema’s repertoire. We discuss his experience and work during the pandemic, the creation of Coïgitum, and the imagination, among many other topics.
Links to topics discussed:
https://strangestrings.bandcamp.com/ (new recording available soon)
richardbarrettmusic.com (scores available for download, recordings, and writing)
https://soundcloud.com/r-barrett (recordings)
Ryan Packard Curates | Bromander + Packard + Svensson
February 18, 2021
Percussionist/improvisor/composer Ryan Packard curates a floating, astral set for Fonema Consort's Digital Mural, with a trio comprised of Kristofer Svensson, Vilhelm Bromander and Ryan Packard. This trio focuses on the subtle relationships between justly tuned intervals hovering between the resonances made by kecapi, bass and percussion. Almost on the precipice of audibility at points, the colors in this music play as shadows and hues against an austere vibrating sound world. Kristofer Svensson, kecapi Vilhelm Bromander, bass Ryan Packard, tuning forks, percussion, sine tones.
Ryan Packard Curates for Digital Mural | Bromander + Packard + Svensson
Emily Beisel Curates | Anthony Braxton’s Composition No. 255, excerpt
February 4, 2021
Fonema presents our third and final Digital Mural exploration of Anthony Braxton’s “Composition No. 255.”
We are so grateful to the Tri-Centric Foundation for their support and guidance with this project, and for the time they took to speak with us about performance practice.
This excerpt of “Composition No. 255” is part of Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music and therefore allows us to come together, break away, and follow our intuition as members of a collaborating body. In live performance, the score’s monophonic notated line functions as a communal home base and a loose road map so that sections can be entered and exited spontaneously by the performing group. In this spirit, each of our recordings will capture a piece of this hour-long work and will highlight different potentials and possibilities underlying the score. This excerpt is performed by Emily Beisel (clarinet), Dalia Chin (flute), Nathalie Colas (voice), Nina Dante (voice), and Kathryn Schulmeister (double bass).
David Cubek Curates | Interview with composer Mesias Maiguashca + Revisting 8 ejercicios para oír lo inaudible
January 30, 2021
David Cubek, Pablo Chin, and Nina Dante interview Ecuadorian composer Mesias Maiguashca and revisit his beautiful 8 ejercicios para oír lo inaudible in video format.
David Cubek: Where and how have you been in the past few months?
Mesias Maiguashca: Well, mostly at home (Corona), interrupted by two trips, one to Berlin for the premiere of La Canción de la Tierra, an audiovisual composition, in the Festival Radical Sounds Latinamerica. And one to Essen for the premiere of my newest composition ...I can breathe... composed for the ensemble S201 for the Festival NOW in Essen.
DC: How has the pandemic affected your creative work?
MM: Profoundly. At the beginning of 2020 I started composing the above mentioned work for the ensemble S201 in Essen. The Corona pandemic burst suddenly and very soon its problematic dominated the public discussion all over the world. The frantic rush of contemporary life was shocked, in many ways it came to a standstill. Incredible: all of a sudden we had time. Shocking. Imagine: having time to think things over, and over, and over.
But in this standstill many things did happen. In May 2020 in USA George Floyd was practically "executed" by white policemen, one of the most frightening events of this decade. Video recordings of this action circulated worldwide. Before dying Floyd repeatedly uttered
"...I can´t breathe..."
This phrase haunted me during the process of creating my new composition. Beyond indignation and anger it made me aware, first, of the invaluable privilege of being able to breathe at will and then of the importance of breathing as the very first factor of life and, in general, of nature. For me, for us, art and music are our way of breathing. I hope that we will never need to utter that ominous phrase.
The composition ...I can breathe... was first performed in Essen the 6th of November, in the Festival NOW.
DC: Tells us about 8 ejercicios para oír lo inaudible, its origin, concept.
MM: In 2015 I attended a conference in Montevideo about La música y los pueblos indígenas de América. The researcher Brabec de Mori from Graz, read at the conference the paper Las canciones de los espíritus: una antropología de lo inaudible. This lecture triggered my fantasy. Brabec describes in his text the roll of sound as a substantial form of communication in the [S]hipibo communities in the [P]eruvian [A]mazonic plains. Don´t forget: their vital community includes not only human beings, but also their whole natural environment: animals, plants and ... spirits as well. They use sound, music, not only to communicate among human beings but with the whole environment, therefore also with spirits. The music to communicate with spirits is supposed to be inaudible.
The text from Brabec set me on fire. Many questions arose: Do spirits exists? Can you communicate with them? With music? With inaudible music? Is there a music than is not audible?
I decided to make exercises in my composition. They consist of sending musical messages to the spirit of a beloved person and then, thereafter, create a long or very long pause in which one could expect an answer as "inaudible" music. Naive as they are, these exercises became very interesting because of the quality of listening to a supposedly inaudible response, of listening to silence.
DC: What is the significance of this work in your oeuvre?
MM: Important part of my work has been dedicated to "deduce", so to speak, music by departing from theoretical premises. For example in the composition Intensidad y Altura for a percussion ensemble, the proportion 4:5:6:7 generates the whole composition, rhythmically and harmonically. As a counterpart, in the cycle Reading Castañeda, I imagined music by referring to non-rational experiences described in the texts of Carlos Castañeda. In 8 Ejercicios I do return to imagine music triggered by non-rational situations and linking it to a speculative spiritual exercise.
Pablo Chin: Metal objects have been part of your musical language for decades – since the 1960’s or 70’s. What does the metal bar in 8 ejercicios mean to you?
I started using mechanical objects (wooden or metal) to produce sound, during the time of the composition of the cycle Reading Castañeda, in the eighties.
I was at first primarily interested in the sound world attached to them. But somehow the symbolic and physical presence of the objects as such, became increasingly important for me. They started to acquire some sort of fetishistic properties.
The metal bar used in the 8 ejercicios has many meanings:
.Its sound opens each one of the exercises, as a kind of a ritual call to the spirits;
.its musical spectrum defines the harmonic content of the whole composition;
.thus, the bar leads the request of communication with the world of the spirits and provides its harmonic framework.
PC: What did you think of the experience of hearing Fonema playing this piece in your native city (Quito)?
The quality of the performance was very fine. However the experience as a whole was extremely frustrating to me. The public attendance was extremely low. Our country has very little contact to the international contemporary music scene. Such a concert should have had more public attention and coverage. And also personally, I was very disappointed that my work arises so little interest in my own home.
Nina Dante: You have indigenous roots in Ecuador, an Andean country with many rich oral cultures with close ties to the land. Could you talk to us about if and how your connection to your ancestral landscape and culture is reflected in your artistic practice?
MM: I would like to begin with [the] following illustration. I think that one of the most defining aspects of the identity of an individual is its mother tongue. Even though a person can learn and master other languages, the mother tongue continues, many times unwittingly, to build an essential part of his identity. Similarly, I think that there is such a thing as a ur-sensibility, a kind of way of being, which will accept many changes and influences during a life-time and though persist as an essential part of an individual. I am sure that this ur-sensibility is in my case definitely linked to the ancestral landscape and culture. Speaking of it in connection to an artistic or musical practice, it does not mean that it needs to be explicit through the use of original musical materials or cultural practices. In my work I have accepted other cultural and vital experiences that have surely changed me. However in the later years of I have deliberately chosen "national" materials for my work, as in the case of the Boletín y Elegía de las Mitas, a scenic cantata based on a text of César Dávila Andrade, a leading Ecuadorian poet. Short, I am not worried about the question of whether my work needs or has a direct connection to my ancestral landscape and culture. What matters to me is the degree of penetration and honesty in the treatment of those items, in last analysis, what matters is the quality and vitality of the musical work.
PC: I asked you this question in 2015 in Quito, during our events with Fonema Consort. I would like to revisit it. What is your opinion about borrowing indigenous cultures’ music in the context of Western art practices and traditions? Can it be done constructively, or is it likely to be exploitative? In contemporary music, do you think such endeavors often end up reflecting a colonial way of being, thinking or doing?
Mesias: I think that nowadays any and every musical material is and should be free to be used by any artist. The key point is how and to what purpose the material is used. I think that what really matters is if the new product is vital and original enough, if it offers a new quality. In the moment in which whatever artist is creative, in the moment that he invents something new, something original, then he has superseded colonialism.
Freiburg 21.01.2021
Mesias Maiguashca
Daniel Walden Curates | Walden + Julio Zúñiga’s Parallel Peaks
Monday, January 18 - Sunday January 24, 2021
Composer Julio Zúñiga and pianist Daniel Walden have compiled seven entries, one for each day of the week, out of audio-visual material recorded from around their quarantine homes in Costa Rica and Italy.
Click the buttons below to explore each day.
Nina Dante Curates | Songs of Animate Place pt. II
"Place yourself here”
January 16, 2021
Sink into the lush green web of the world with composer-performer Nina Dante's Digital Mural offering "Place yourself here". This is the second work in her three-part series Songs of Animate Place. A meditation on and invitation to immerse ourselves in the sensuality of moving through the natural world, this work features footage from Nina's local environment in the Pacific Northwest. We are part of the intricate and gorgeous web of life that is this world. Every decision we make matters in a world whose balance of life is as fragile as it is intentional.
“Place yourself here “ – Nina Dante
Samuel Rowe Curates | Nervio part 3
Samuel Rowe Curates for the Digital Mural – Nervio part 3
December 30, 2020
This improvisation, recorded as the Winter Solstice approached, returns to Graciela Paraskevaidis's "El Nervio de Arnold," and to the small pitch cells from which the piece is built. As the northern hemisphere froze, I tried to find the bottom of the guitar's soundable range. Like Paraskevaidis's original work, the detuned strings afford both violence and meditative depth.
David Cubek Curates | Interview with composer Marisol Jiménez + revisiting Caro cibus
December 17, 2020
Conductor David Cubek presents the first of three interviews and piece revisits from our archive. This week, Nina, Pablo and David speak with Berlin-based Mexican composer Marisol Jiménez about the impulses behind her work, her life during the pandemic, and revisit her churning, serpentine piece “Caro cibus” which we performed in 2015. In her own words, her work “expresses an intense fascination with the tactile process of creating sound, an interplay of the entropic within the structured musical machinery, colliding the primeval with the technological to seek forceful sensuous and visceral energies.” Our thanks to Marisol to joining us, and to the performers featured on our 2015 video: David Cubek (conductor), Nina Dante (voice), Emily Beisel (clarinet), Lia Kohl (cello), Shawn Lucas (electric guitar), Christopher Narloch (piano), Jake Harpster (percussion), Weston Olencki (electronics).
Interview with composer Marisol Jiménez
Pablo Chin Curates | Sketches for Green Alter Egos
Sketches for Green Alter Egos: an Insectopera, by Pablo Chin
December 10, 2020
Fonema’s artistic director and composer Pablo Chin presents sketches for Green Alter Egos, a virtual opera combining film, meditational electroacoustic music, and poetry and drawings by Mar Alzamora-Rivera that will be premiered virtually by the Americas Society in April 2021. It portrays semi-anthropomorphized insects from the natural scenery of New York, recorded during silent quarantined times. The work blends fiction with reality, and through the voices of Fonema members will express the vulnerability of its little green characters. This sketch, “Wormoverture”, features vocalist Nina Dante, flutist Dalia Chin, and clarinetist Pablo Chin.
The poetry of Mar Alzamora-Rivera featured in this sketch:
Arthropoda I (Forgetful)
Shshshshshaquíshshsh
My body and its parts
Rrrrrrrirrrrrrrdi rrrrrueposh
Shshshshshacáshshshsh
Trtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrotro
Another possibility to go and un-go
Rrrrrugarrrrrr
Shshshsh
Rrrrrrrrtr
What does a path mean without matter?
Trtrtr
R
Is it real?
Arthropoda I (Olvidadizo)
Shshshshshaquíshshsh
Mi cuerpo y sus partes
Rrrrrrrirrrrrrrdi rrrrrueposh
Shshshshshacáshshshsh
Trtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrotro
Otra posibilidad de andar y desandar
Rrrrrugarrrrrr
Shshshsh
Rrrrrrrrtr
¿Qué es el camino sin la materia?
Trtrtr
R
¿Es real?
Arhtropoda - Mar Alzamora-Rivera
Dragonfly (DEATH)
Zih
Zoh
Zuh
Sometimes life is short,
for such long journeys.
My nymphs still remain
in the puddle.
Zih
Zoh
Zuh
Sometimes life is short,
for these two free wings.
I saved so many from death,
but, who did so for me?
Zih
Zoh
Zuh
Sometimes life is short,
the seven years did not come.
Sometimes promises are not fulfilled
in this human world.
Zuerteztz
Zih…
Zoh…
Zuh…
Dragonfly (MUERTE)
Zih
Zoh
Zuh
A veces la vida es corta
para viajes tan largos.
Todavía siguen mis ninfas
en el charco.
Zih
Zoh
Zuh
A veces la vida es corta
para estas dos alas libres.
Salvé a tantos de la muerte,
pero ¿quién a mí?
Zih
Zoh
Zuh
A veces la vida es corta,
no llegaron los siete años.
A veces las promesas no se cumplen
en este mundo humano.
Zuerteztz
Zih…
Zoh…
Zuh…
Dragonfly – Mar Alzamora-Rivera
Emily Beisel Curates |
Anthony Braxton’s Composition No. 255, “IV”
December 3, 2020
In a series of recorded excerpts, Fonema explores Anthony Braxton’s music, focusing on “Composition No. 255”, as part of our Digital Mural 2020-2021 season. This piece is part of Braxton’s "Ghost Trance Music" and therefore allows us to come together, break away, and follow our intuition as members of a collaborating body. In live performance the score’s monophonic notated line functions as a communal home base and a loose road map so that sections can be entered and exited spontaneously by the performing group. In this spirit, each of our recordings will capture a piece of this hour-long work and will highlight different potentials and possibilities underlying the score. This excerpt, “IV”, is one of four small pieces that are included at the end of the full length score of "Composition No. 255". They are designed to be added at will into the larger score during performance.
“IV” is performed by Emily Beisel (clarinet), Nathalie Colas-Grant (voice), Nina Dante (voice), and Samuel Rowe (guitar).
Anthony Braxton | Composition No. 255, “IV”
We are grateful to the Tri-Centric Foundation for their support and guidance with this project!
Samuel Rowe Curates | Nervio pt 2
November 19, 2020
This improvisation is built around two of the small pitch cells from which Graciela Paraskevaidis's "El Nervio de Arnold" is built: an insistent major second and a delicate 3-note scale. Walking around with Paraskevaidis's insistent E F# motif in my ears, I started connecting it to the slide guitarist Ry Cooder's iconic soundtrack for the film "Paris, Texas." The movie is about immense distances, both outer and inner, while Paraskevaidis's piece, written during a period of acute nerve pain, is about being stuck inside one's home and body. Somehow, however, the connection stuck for me, and I tried to bring some of the arid vastness of Cooder's playing into Graciela's and my living room.
–Samuel Rowe
Nina Dante Curates | Songs for Animate Place Pt 1
Now you are a wave – created + performed by Nina Dante
November 12, 2020
Become a wave on the Salmon River.
The Salmon River runs through my home wilderness here in the Pacific Northwest. It rushes down from the great glacier on the volcano Wy'east / Mt Hood. It roars through deep canyons between fir and cedar-covered mountains. It plunges in waterfalls. It sings ceaselessly.
The river is in the shape of a great sickle, reflecting the life-and-death cycles that make this river of the deepest ecological importance: the great migrations of the Chinook and Coho salmon. They are born in Salmon River, live their adult lives in the Pacific Ocean, and return to spawn and die here in wild flashings of bruise-red, crushed-berry-red, silver, and black.
Much of the life-giving nutrients found in the forest soil around the Salmon River come from the bodies of the salmon. The bears grow fat and sleep all winter and give birth to cubs on the strength of the salmon. The crows and the eagles are sustained by the salmon. The beloved and embattled orcas known as the Southern Residents who live primarily in the Salish Sea, eat nearly exclusively the salmon who migrate from this area. Because of dams in the Snake River, salmon populations have been decimated, and this orca pod has been slowly starving to death.
“And now you are a wave” | Nina Dante
Every decision we make matters in a world whose balance of life is aS fragile as it is intentional.
Samuel Rowe Curates | Nervio pt 1
Graciela Paraskevaídis’ El nervio de Arnold
October 29, 2020
The Argentine/Uruguayan composer Graciela Paraskevaídis wrote one work for solo guitar, El nervio de Arnold (1992). Written while Paraskevaídis was struggling with chronic nerve pain, El nervio de Arnold records the experience of being stuck inside one's own body: moments of inescapable discomfort, moments of fluid lucidity, interspersed with expectant silence. There's something about this enigmatic score that resonates with our collective moment of being stuck indoors, our days immersed in both quietude and anxiety. This recording is the first of three in a series Rowe is calling Nervio, which recovers Paraskevaídis' piece, rarely performed in North America, and also presents some semi-improvised responses to it, recorded alone, inside; and which continues Fonema’s long-term exploration of Paraskevaídis’ work, which began last year.
Samuel Rowe introduces his project Nervio, and Paraskevaídis’ El nervio de Arnold
El nervio de Arnold | composed by Graciela Paraskevaídis | performed by Samuel Rowe
During her lifetime, Graciela Paraskevaídis (1940-2017) was a highly influential artist, thinker, and political activist in Latin America. Fonema is highly committed to presenting her musical creations to US audiences, creations that are simultaneously raw and delicate, intuitive and intellectually-demanding, lush and sparse. Our long-term deep-dive into her work began in the 2019-2020 season with performances of her lush landscape of a piece Sin ir más lejos for flute, piano and percussion; Solos for guitar and clarinet; and más fuerza tiene for solo clarinet.
Kathryn Schulmeister Curates |
Mined Temporality with Dylan DelGiudice
October 22, 2020
Mined Temporality is a musical collaboration of composer/guitarist Dylan DelGiudice and bassist Kathryn Schulmeister. With a mutual interest in improvisational experimentation, this piece creates an environment for interactive performing at a distance with an original electronic track and score by DelGiudice.
Kathryn introduces “Mined Temporality”
Words from Dylan:
“Mined Temporality” is the culmination of a few months of playing with Kathryn over Zoom during quarantine. Since Kathryn contacted me to work on this project in July, we improvised together several times through Zoom, with me playing guitar in New York and Kathryn playing bass in San Diego, California.
Mined Temporality: DelGiudice/Schulmeister Collaboration
(Continued) Improvising over Zoom has been a necessity and challenge for musicians since the onset of the pandemic. With groups not being able to play in person, musicians have experimented with virtual formats for playing music, in some cases inventing new software which can adjust lag times to be as simultaneous as possible, but also using software which is not specifically designed for musicians (like Zoom) as a tool and adjusting as improvisers to the difficulties it brings. “Mined Temporalities” came about after conversations and experiments with Kathryn on the best way to make music over Zoom. I thought that our improvisations could best be connected through virtual distance by both playing over a track I created out of my own fragments of music, which could be approached in a number of ways, by letting it speak for itself, or by introducing new pulses and ideas over it. I created a score that allowed new improvised material to slowly be introduced based on what was happening in the track. Because of the lag introduced by Zoom, I thought the best way to induce a sense of “togetherness” would be to base the piece not on meter or organized time, but rather by the speeds and affects that we were hearing. Listening holds this piece together, just as many improvising musicians and people have had to find new ways to listen to each other in this time.
Emily Beisel Curates | Anthony Braxton’s “Composition No. 255”
Anthony Braxton’s “Composition No. 255”
October 15, 2020
In a series of recorded excerpts, Fonema explores Anthony Braxton’s music, focusing on “Composition No. 255”. This piece is part of Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music and allows us to come together, break away, and follow our intuition as members of a collaborating body. In live performance, the score’s monophonic notated line functions as a communal home base and a loose road map so that sections can be entered and exited spontaneously by the performing group. In this spirit, each of our recordings will capture a piece of this hour-long work and will highlight different potentials and possibilities underlying the score. We are so grateful to the Tri-Centric Foundation for their support and guidance as we dive into the rich musical language of Anthony Braxton for the first time.
The Digital Mural
We of Fonema Consort recognize the Covid-19 pandemic as a tragic event and as an unprecedented challenge. We believe in the humanizing force of artistic creation, and in this spirit, we are launching Digital Mural: an online space —an e-wall— for each member of the ensemble to leave their expressive print throughout the exceptional circumstances around which we navigate this period of time.
Digital Mural is an online season in times of confinement; a platform to express music in relative isolation; a collaborative musical diary to reflect upon the times and to be revisited in the future to provide a sense of perspective from the standpoint of our artistic family. Each entry of Digital Mural will be released every Thursday between October of 2020 and April of 2021. Videos will be streamed here and on our YouTube channel. These performer-driven projects will vary from collaborations virtually uniting the group, to meditative works reflecting upon the spiritual and acoustic space of solitude; from collaborations with new composers to the revisiting of previously programmed works, including published conversations with selected composers; from the soundscapes surrounding us to our continued focus on the voice. Explore the full season here.
Our season will culminate with world premieres by composers Luis Fernando Amaya, Sterling Gray, and Bethany Younge. Composers featured in Digital Mural include Luis Fernando Amaya, Richard Barrett, James Bean, Anthony Braxton, Pablo Santiago Chin, Nina Dante, Dylan DelGiudice, Sterling Gray, Marisol Jiménez, Mesias Maiguashca, Graciela Paraskevaídis, Bethany Younge and Julio Zúñiga.
Our deep gratitude to the Amphion Foundation, whose generous support is making this programming possible.
You individual contributions go such a long way in making this year possible for artists in light of unprecedented amounts of lost work- thank you for your kind support!