Arts Birthday
Radio station: Polish Radio
Venue/s of the event: STUDIO
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TITLE 1: Il dolce suono – aria from the opera “Lucia di Lammermoor” by Gaetano Donizetti,worked out by Cezary Duchnowski – excerpt from the music to the play Under the Influence staged in at the Silesian Theater in Katowice (premiere 23.03.2018)performers: The ElettroVoce Duo (Agata Zubel and Cezary Duchnowski) Duration: 8:21
TITLE 2: Bar – excerpt from the music by Cezary Duchnowski to the play Under the Influence staged in at the Silesian Theater in Katowice (premiere 23.03.2018)performers: The ElettroVoce Duo (Agata Zubel and Cezary Duchnowski)Duration: 6:21
Under the Influence is a performance inspired by John Cassavetes’ film A Woman Under the Influence from 1974. The first high-profile film that speaks of ordinary family life, but from the point of view of a woman who falls into a kind of madness. The film once became a kind of manifesto for American women. Following the original film, the main character often escaped into the world of opera. In the movie itself, the opera music is chosen quite randomly. I decided to choose completely different arias that in some way refer to the experiences and states of Mabel (the main character), and arrange them a bit differently, and of course also invite Agata with her not only operatic expression using a white voice. I referred to one of the most famous scenes of the madness of Lucia di Lammermoor in opera history and also to the drama of a woman in Catalani’s opera. She had to choose between love and a family home.Cezary DuchnowskiThe starting point for the play was the film by an American experimenter John Cassavetes with Gena Rowlands. Entitled “Woman Under the Influence” (1974), it won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. Cassavetes created a tale of a hypersensitive woman slowly falling into madness while tending to home and progeny. He spun the tale drawing from his own experience of becoming fully devoted to the care for his children.Director Maja Kleczewska transferred the mental madness Mabel plunges into to a world of an industrial city and a male worker environment. She’s trying to accept it, just like she opens to her husband. However, she cannot count on reciprocity. She is so very different, oversensitive, and maladjusted to the reality that the perception by the opinionated “normal world” and family can be nothing short of brutally biased.(from the Silesian Theater’s web site)
TITLE 3: Whims (Widzimisię) for desemantric verbaphone – piece by duo ElettroVoce – (extensive excerpt)performers: The ElettroVoce Duo (Cezary Duchnowski – electronics, piano, Agata Zubel – soprano)Duration: 4:44
Piece has its premiere 18.09.2020 at the opening concert of festival Warsaw Autumn.The ElettroVoce Duo has for nearly twenty years stayed on the balance BETWEEN the oldest and the newest instruments. Somewhere in BETWEEN, the human usually loses his/her voice to give the machine a spirit. BETWEEN, there are often words, as it makes sense for the voice. These words should be BETWEEN, with some sense. Sense is where the listener is, listening in order to lose sense and find it anew. Sense is the spirit of words, which is hidden BETWEEN words. We shall play a question about meaning and respond with sound, in order to hear the sense and the spirit. If someone hears it, we see it in BETWEEN.Agata Zubel and Cezary DuchnowskiVENUE of the concert: Academy of Music in WrocławConcert date: 12/12/2020RADIO STATION Polish RadioDESCRIPTION/text (max. 2500 characters)Duration of the whole: 19:59 (with the Ars Acustica-signature)The pandemic has hit the world of culture, artists and audiences. The concert halls are deserted. Radio waves and the Internet have become a natural place of contact.The 2nd Program of Polish Radio offered musicians concerts in their homes or other places of their choice. Their stylistic spectrum is wide. Recorded performances (audio and video) are broadcast from April 18, 2020 every Saturday from 19.00 to 19.30 on the 2nd Program of Polish Radio and on the website. We propose two examples (in excerpts) as part of the Art Birthday 2021.(The second one on 21:10 – 21:30 UTC)Marek Zwyrzykowski
Cezary Duchnowski (b. 1971)Born in 1971 in Elbląg, composer and pianist. Winner of numerous awards, including at the International Rostrum of Electroacoustic Music in Rome for Monada III (2004) and the Gaudeamus Interpreters’ Competition for contemporary music performers in the Netherlands (2005). He writes chamber, symphonic and theatre music. He also creates multimedia projects, interactive improvised and paramusical projects. Since many years, he has focused on electroacoustic music. In the ElettroVoce duo with Agata Zubel he develops projects for voice and electronics.
Agata Zubel (b. 1978)Composer and singer, known for her unique vocal range and use of techniques that challenge stereotypes, Agata Zubel gives concerts throughout the world and has premiered numerous new works.The ElettroVoce Duo arose out of the collaboration of two composers: Agata Zubel and Cezary Duchnowski. Both are characterised by a unique approach to music: fascination with timbre, expansion of performance resources, and eternal seeking. For Zubel, who is also active as an avant-garde vocalist, it is a desire to discover new means of vocal expression; for Duchnowski, a search for new contexts for traditional instruments. This resulted in the use of the human voice and new possibilities afforded by the computer.
ElettroVoce Duo has performed at numerous contemporary music Festivals in Poland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Ukraine, and Russia. Works in their rendition (most often their own compositions) have been recorded on many occasions by the Polish Radio, as well as presented by radio and television broadcasters. In 2005 the artists received a special prize for best ensemble with electronics at the prestigious International Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition. In 2008, the Duo was awarded the Wrocław Music Prize for its record ElettroVoce.
– ART'S BIRTHDAY – 