Culminating a two-year research process around the recovery of and through the voice, 'Embody, Mind, Voice' explores the gaps between air and sound, phonation and non-phonation, notes and noise.
Embody, Mind, Voice is an experimental music performance centered around the human voice. This journey through vocal recovery features live and recorded voice, looping, electronics, choir, and live instruments. The audience is immersed in an organic vocal soundscape while exploring the questions: “How do I heal my voice?” and “How can my voice heal me?”
The concert consists of two parts, “body” and “mind”, which are connected by a common thread: voice. While the first half, “body”, contains sensorial, vocal, and electronic experimental work, the second half, “mind”, adopts a more traditional concert approach, and features original songs that explore mental health topics. The instrumentation is upright bass, piano, guitar, voice, and synthesizer.
April 11, 2024
Mengi, Reykjavik
TO BREATHE AGAIN
Violin study
In collaboration with Stijn Brinkman
Recovery is seldom linear. "To Breathe Again" is an experimental study for solo violin, composed in collaboration with violinist Stijn Brinkman, in which the violin embodies the recovery of the human voice. Utilizing unconventional playing techniques, the violin mimics the inhalations and exhalations of an injured voice, and its journey to clearing its throat, attempting to speak, failing, trying again, and ultimately singing.
In close conversation with the performer, the extended techniques on the violin grant the instrument a human and flawed quality. Perhaps the strongest example of this is Stijn's signature ability to play the violin with hands crossed, placing the bow near the top of the fingerboard while holding the notes down near the neck of the violin, which flips all intervals, thus requiring an impressive coordination from the performer.
Coined 'sul tasto speciale' in the score, this technique serves to underline how little control we have over our vocal folds when they are injured.
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In Embody, Mind, Voice, "To Breathe Again" is played in the background of "All Voice is Breath".
GLITCHING
Voice and Electronics Soundscape
‘Glitching’ underlines the relationship between air and voice through a transformation of breaths and notes. Reversing inhalations to create the sound of an exhaled note without control, it alludes to an imperfect voice burdened with injury.
Audible inhalations, or aspirated phonations, are also characteristic of the Icelandic language. The cyclical nature of the piece mimics how we breathe: an inhalation always comes after an exhalation. Throughout the piece, airy breath sounds become defined notes with increasing resonance, as the vocal cords are slowly activated, and the injury is healed.
Version 1
Performance in Ómkvörnin
Spring 2023
Version 2
Final project for Music Production
Fall 2023
Version 3
Embody, Mind, Voice
Spring 2024
MIND
WATERFLOW
Participatory Performance
Human and planetary bodies alike maintain a cyclical connection to water; the abundance or lack thereof informs movements and stillness, rest, and momentum. ”Waterflow” emphasizes our relationship and dependence on water, which we can neither hoard nor forego, but must allow to flow through us. This piece connects deeply to my personal journey of vocal recovery on three levels: its non-phonatory nature, its focus on hydration, and its process of allowing.
Though it was not included in the final concert setlist, “Waterflow” is a defining piece in the project Embody, Mind, Voice, as it lays the foundation of embodied practice that is present throughout the two years of my artistic research within the framework of NAIP. “Waterflow” is a participatory performance created in collaboration with Vala Yates and inspired by the five stages of the Earth’s water cycle: groundwater, evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and run-off.
Guided by non-verbal cues, participants engage in a series of movements (or non-movements) that flow through and between each stage, with differing levels of intensity or stillness, during which an inward focus is encouraged.
As a performance, it is the precursor to “Eyrnasía.”
WATERFLOW
Performance as part of NAIP Performance and Communication
October 2022
IN THE NETHERLANDS
March 10 - 14, 2024
Masters students from Iceland University of Arts, Prins Claus Conservatory, and Minerva Institute collaborated to create a performance in Grand Theatre, Groningen.
The choral piece Re-cover-y was composed and workshopped during this performance in residency.
IN NORTHERN ICELAND
November 2022 and September 2023
Collaborations between NAIP and Music Education (2022), and NAIP and Performing Arts (2023).