{"id":472,"date":"2019-10-25T12:46:41","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T11:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=472"},"modified":"2019-10-25T12:46:42","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T11:46:42","slug":"trondheim-voices-calling-occupants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2019\/10\/25\/trondheim-voices-calling-occupants\/","title":{"rendered":"TRONDHEIM VOICES CALLING OCCUPANTS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A MOMENT IN A\nUNIVERSE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\nwill soon have been in existence for twenty years and in that time have become\nwidely famed as a vocal group delivering improvised performances in the jazz\ngenre. The Norwegian group, Trondheim Voices, were formed to take part in a\nChristmas Concert in 2001 that had been initiated by Minnorsk jazzsentre (MNJ)\nin 2001. They have since established themselves, with a consistent vocal\nensemble delivering bespoke material or arrangements. A little bit like our own\nLanzarote Ensemble, they are state-supported and include a core of around\nfifteen singers, although the crew and artistic directors vary from project to\nproject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tone\nAse is the current artistic leader of an ensemble held in high regard by MNJ.\nThe group\u00b4s performance of compositions by esteemed composers like Live Marie\nRoggan and Eldbjorg Raknes was nationally broadcast live by NRK P2. They also\nappeared at Moldejazz in 2003 and again in 2006 in a production of Norwegian\nSanctus by Tien Bierklund. In this, Trondheim Voices interacted with<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trondheim\nSoloists, Arva Hennksen and Stuan Westerhus. In 2008, they then premiered a\nperformance called Bingo, which featured lyrics by Sin Gjaere and music by Elin\nRosseland, Stale Storlokken and Live Maria Roggen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\nreleasing their first album in 2010, Trondheim Voices worked with the\npercussion group, Batagraf, on a piece written especially for that pairing by\npianist and composer John Balke. It was performed live at Moldejazz 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jon\nBalke, by the way is, like Trondheim Voices, here on Lanzarote this month to\ntake part in the 16th<\/sup> Festiva De Musica Visual, and performed his\nwork, Warp, in The Auditorio De Los Jameos Del Agua on Saturday 12th<\/sup>\nOctober.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trondheim Voices & Asle Karstad were officially\nbringing the Festival to a close, tonight here in the Convent of Santo Domingo\nde Teguise, on Saturday 19th<\/sup> October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sound effects, created by Karstad, are designed to\nallow the twelve voices of the group to move freely through space, making each\nperformance a unique experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bearing in mind the assertion by the late American\nsongwriter, John Stewart, that \u00b4people like what they know but don\u00b4t know what\nthey like\u00b4 the promise in the programme might have been seen as disconcerting.\nThe information that \u00b4Trondheim Voices challenge the limits and conventional\nformat of a vocal concert, in constant search of new avenues of interaction\nbetween singers, audiences, environments and new technologies\u00b4 had my wife,\nDee, on edge from the beginning. Interaction is not her thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
listening for Trondheim Voices<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Tonight\u00b4s show was composed to allow the vocal technique and timbre of each of the singers to create wide soundscapes loaded with subtle sounds, ambient rhythms and “disturbingly beautiful choral moments”. More to the point, the use of exclusive sound effects devices, designed by Asle Karstad, which allow each singer to move freely through the room, generate an enveloping atmosphere and break the barrier of the conventional stage. This gives the audience a unique listening experience in which both singers and the audience enter a constant state of discovery. In his repertoire, free improvisation plays a vital role that is complemented by the incorporation of original compositions written by the members of the group or by works by composers such as St. Storkken, Christian Wallumr or Balke. Musician Asle Karstad was in charge of sound effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
TRONDHEIM VOICES programme notes
or
an A to Z of Sidetracks And Detours

<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The\nseventy minute performance was called Rooms And Rituals and began only after it\nwas explained to the audience that all we would be hearing tonight was \u00b4of the\nhere and now,\u00b4 meaning we were told that every sound would be produced by the\nsix ladies we would see performing. There would be no pre-recorded backing\ntracks or tricks, no inclusion of sound effects slotted in and no outside\ninterference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then,\nthe lights in this centuries old convent went out, or were switched off, and we\nwere immediately plunged into a darkness that somehow took away our conception\nof Time. Silence descended. Slowly, low spotlights illuminated huge paintings\nor photographs, hung around the high and wide walls of the room, of rock-scape\nof cracks and crevasses, edges and falls, fissures and fusions. Uninhabited.\nYet, from beyond the one hundred and fifty or so people I had seen in the\naudience before darkness fell, we could see tiny lights moving slowly towards\nus. As they approached we could hear whisperings; unintelligible but\nnon-threatening, unidentifiable but strangely familiar. As they arrived in the\ncentre of the floor it was already apparent this was not to be a performance\nbut instead was to be a journey through times and places we had never seen and\nwould not be able to easily identify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone\nelse in the audience who had, like us, visited a wonderful visual arts\nexhibition by Ildefonso Aguilla in the Cic EL Almacen recently might have been\nreminded of the sonic recordings the artist had made of the sounds of the earth\nheaving and moaning and shifting. His recordings seemed to call us back, or\nforward, to a time before, or after, Mankind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly\nthese Trondheim Voices took us on a trip through apprehension, into wonderment,\nand out into an infinity created by, but defiant of, technology. Their voices,\nwith no words, seemed to be rising from the bowels of an earth, through its\nheart and soul and out into space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weirdly,\nin this place not yet invented, untainted, that seemed to be of a world being\nborn, or re-born, and that might have been either utopian or dystopian\ndepending on how each of us received their message of no vocabulary, it was\nalmost as if they were \u00b4calling occupants of inter-planetary, most\nextraordinary craft.\u00b4 That was a song, by Klaatu, that opened the night\ntransmissions of Radio Caroline in the nineteen sixties, the decade of the\nspace race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nsong was subsequently recorded by The Carpenters, with a supporting cast of 160\nmusicians and production values of risers and faders, fluffers and tweeters,\nlooped music and segued music and graphic equalisers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
TRONDHEIM VOICES<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Tonight\nsix voices, and seven microphones, recreated similar sounds from an age before\nMan created gods and God created Man, from an era before, or after, there had\nbeen life on our planet. These sounds were a message to, or from, life out\namong the stars to or from an earth mewling its birth cries or suffering its\ndeath throes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nmight have been \u00b4mood music\u00b4 from millions of years before that phrase had ever\nbeen invented, or from ages after that phrase had been forgotten, but musical\nit all certainly was. And to call it moody does not do it justice. There was\ngreeting and rejection, confidance and conspiracy among these notes that were\nyelling \u00b4we are here\u00b4 or perhaps \u00b4don\u00b4t let them find us.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nwere echoes of the frighteningly beguiling songs of the sirens who lure\npassers-by into the crashing, tumbling falling waters in the snow-capped\nmountains that guard the fjords of Norway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Words\u00b4\nwere whispered, hissed, breathed and broken in confrontation and conciliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nperhaps the most accessible part of the performance a few pieces of almost\nrecognisable language spoke of fire and the need for it, a clue perhaps to a\nhistorical time-line, and suddenly all these sounds became evocative, and\ncomforting, and might have described a collective identity. For a while it was\nif we are all a close knit community, sitting round a campfire singing the old\nsongs together, sharing memories we had made, and dreaming the same dream. Of\ncourse, the fire soon crackled and spluttered and sparked arguments and hisses\nfrom the people around it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nlight of the fire burned out, the voices and the sounds faded, and the\ncommunication between Man and his God, or from God to his Angels, or from Time\nto Time was over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwas left with no firm idea of what we had heard and have failed miserably to\nformulate one in this \u00b4review.\u00b4 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nhad been scaring but reassuring, detached but somehow embracing of us, and had\nbeen beautifully, tunefully, majestically and magnificently performed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nthen they were gone, leaving us all to wonder what we had been listening to.\nThe lights came up and as the audience filed out we recognised some good\nfriends, from Dee\u00b4s yoga group, with whom we share not one word of common\nlanguage,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a8Non\nflamenco,\u00b4 Marco said as he shook my hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4No\nmate, you can\u00b4t dance to that,\u00b4 I replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nhadn\u00b4t been invited to a dance though. We had been invited to communicate, and\nsomehow at the end of it all Marco and I had shared a brief joke in way we\nmight never have previously been able to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually,\nthough, maybe it had all been a dance. For as has been said of Anthony Burgess\u00b4\nwork, A Dance Through The Music Of Time, this delivery had been \u00b4unique,\nplayful, liveable and literary.\u00b4 Uttered by Norwegians to a mainly Spanish\naudience, these sounds had been \u00b4\u00ednelectubaly English\u00b4 and \u00b4wonderfully funny.\u00b4\nThey carried an \u00b4entire world history.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nfollowing day, a friend I had seen at the event but had not been able to reach\nto speak to, responded to my  e-mail\nseeking her views. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4It was\nan amazing production,\u00b4 she said, \u00b4and I use the word carefully as\n“production” refers to everything; the seating layout, the lighting,\nprojections on the walls, the costumes – even their funny shoe coverings – and\nfinally of course the performance itself.   I don’t think it could be\ncalled singing exactly, perhaps vocalisation would be a better description. We\nwould have preferred the performance to have been combined with some actual\nsinging thus giving some sense of direction perhaps.   It got to the\npoint where I felt a little lost and that it was time for a change. That all\nbeing said, it was a unique and wonderful experience.\u00b4 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Travel,\nof course, both dislocates and re-locates us and affects our perceptions of\ntime and place The appropriateness of that title of Rooms And Rituals has not\nyet come to me, for my head is still too full of concerns about the sacred and\nprofane and other reflections on the light years of travel I journeyed on last\nnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps,\nthough, I had not travelled that far, but had simply lived through a moment in\na universe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A MOMENT IN A UNIVERSE They will soon have been in existence for twenty years and in that time have become widely famed as a vocal group delivering improvised performances in the jazz genre. The Norwegian group, Trondheim Voices, were formed to take part in a Christmas Concert in 2001 that had been initiated by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","category-performing-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}