Various Artists - Resonant Bodies
Biography Various Artists - Resonant Bodies
The Resonant Bodies Festival
says its final goodbye in this legacy album for the sonically voracious. Drawing from seven years of performances, including over 100 world premieres and dozens of groundbreaking vocalists, Resonant Bodies offers a thirteen-track compilation of the Festival’s most memorable moments. It embodies the fiercely inquisitive curatorial spirit that has long been the Festival’s lifeblood, featuring pioneering artists such as Julia Bullock, Kamala Sankaram, Lucy Shelton, Caroline Shaw, Pamela Z, and Tony Arnold. In this debut release with New Focus Recordings, Resonant Bodies showcases each live performance, newly remastered for an audio-only experience.
Charmaine Lee’s music is predominantly improvised, and she uses amplification, feedback, and microphones to augment and distort the voice. Littorals establishes multiple layers of activity through delays and a remarkable range of vocal techniques.
She is Asleep, heard in this performance by Julia Bullock, was written by John Cage in 1943 during an intense time in US history and features sounds that are alternately primordial and activated.
Pamela Z's work features her voice with electronic processing, samples, gesture activated MIDI controllers, and video. Quatre Couches is a sonic trifle juxtaposing four contrasting layers and manually toying with them. In Badagada, one of Pamela Z’s early digital delay pieces, syllables are layered in multiple delay lines to form a harmonic, rhythmic accompaniment.
In Thierry Tidrow’s metaphorical “The Flame,” sung here by Sarah Maria Sun, a small but eager flame manages to spread itself slowly throughout a room, devour a house, and finally engulf a whole village and land, until eventually it has nothing else to feed on and suddenly realizes its fate.
Jason Eckardt’s Dithyramb is an excerpt of a larger work, Tongues, which was inspired in part by glossolalia, better known as “speaking in tongues,” an ecstatic outburst of unintelligible vocal sounds that resembles spoken language that Tony Arnold performs with virtuosity and bracing power.
On en route to unfriending, Arooj Aftab is joined by pianist Vijay Iyer and bassist Shahzad Ismaily, a trio project that relishes in unplanned improvisation grounded in responsive listening.
In Ancient Greek, ololyga is the ritual shriek of women, a sound so alarming to men that it could not be uttered within their earshot. Kamala Sankaram’s work was written as a direct response to the 2016 election.
Caroline Shaw's Rise was initially drafted for a dance piece and features shifting chords that ascend and pivot in strange ways. The first version of Other Song was with the full winds and brass section of the National Symphony Orchestra, and is an homage to the songwriter Sara Bareilles.
Gelsey Bell's Feedback Belly takes ubiquitous equipment like a Fender Mini-Twin Amp and Boss Delay pedal and builds a non-notated interactive structure that sensitively responds to the subtle movements and feedback of the performer’s body.
Amadeus Regucera's If only after you then me, performed by Rachel Calloway's voice and violin group Duo Cortona, is a monologue (in a person’s own mind), a dialogue (between intimate partners), or both.
Susan Botti’s "Listen, my heart" is one of seven songs in her Bird Songs, settings of poems from Rabindranath Tagore's Stray Birds, and heard here in a performance by the eminent Lucy Shelton.
In the Garden features Anaïs Maviel’s haunting vocals while she accompanies herself on the Malian plucked string instrument, the n’goni.
One Pitch: Birds for Distortion and Mouth Synthesizers beautifully encapsulates Sofia Jernberg’s rich vocal vocabulary, from experimental extended techniques to ritualistic singing.
Charmaine Lee is a New York-based vocalist. Her music is predominantly improvised, favoring a uniquely personal approach to vocal expression concerned with spontaneity, playfulness, and risk-taking. Beyond extended vocal technique, Charmaine uses amplification, feedback, and microphones to augment and distort the voice. She has performed with leading improvisers Nate Wooley, id m theft able, C. Spencer Yeh, and Ikue Mori, and maintains ongoing collaborations with Conrad Tao, Victoria Shen, Zach Rowden, and Eric Wubbels. She has performed at ISSUE Project Room, the Kitchen, Roulette, the Stone, and MoMA PS1. As a composer, Charmaine has been commissioned by the Wet Ink Ensemble (2018) and Spektral Quartet (2018). charmainlee.com
Julia Bullock
American classical singer Julia Bullock is “a musician who delights in making her own rules” (New Yorker). Combining versatile artistry with a probing intellect and commanding stage presence, she has, in her early 30s, already headlined productions and concerts at preeminent arts institutions around the world. Also an innovative curator in high demand, she holds notable positions including founding core member of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC) and 2018-19 Artist-in-Residence at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bullock previously made debuts at San Francisco Opera, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Dutch National Opera and Russia’s Bolshoi Theatre, and has collaborated with orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and many others.
Pamela Z
is a composer/performer and media artist making works for voice, electronic processing, samples, gesture activated MIDI controllers, and video. She has toured throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. Her work has been presented at venues and exhibitions including Bang on a Can (NY), the Japan Interlink Festival, Other Minds (SF), the Venice Biennale, and the Dakar Biennale. She has composed scores for dance, film, and chamber ensembles (including Kronos Quartet and Eighth Blackbird). Her awards include the Rome Prize, United States Artists, the Guggenheim, Doris Duke Artist Impact Award, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and the Herb Alpert Award. Pamelaz.com
Sarah Maria Sun
is known as one of the foremost and most extraordinary performers in the contemporary music scene. Her repertoire currently spans more than 1000 compositions from the 16th to the 21st century, including 350 world premieres. She regularly performs as a soloist in renowned concert halls and festivals worldwide. From 2007-2014, she was the first soprano of the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, a chamber ensemble of seven singers that has been one of the world's leading pioneers of contemporary music for decades. sarahmariasun.com
Tony Arnold
“Soprano Tony Arnold is a luminary in the world of chamber music and art song. Today’s classical composers are inspired by her inherently beautiful voice, consummate musicianship, and embracing spirit” (Huffington Post). Hailed by The New York Times as “a bold, powerful interpreter,” she is internationally acclaimed as a leading proponent of contemporary music in concert and recording, having premiered hundreds of works by established and emerging composers. screecher.com
Arooj Aftab
The music of Arooj Aftab floats within several liminal spaces you might not have imagined—between New Age and classical minimalism, between Sufi devotional poetry and electronic trance, between singer-songwriter structure and states of pure being. In 2018, Aftab was named among NPR's 200 Greatest Songs by 21st Century Women, and The New York Time's 25 Best Classical Songs of 2018. She has also won a 2020 Academy Award composing music for film.
Kamala Sankaram
As a composer/performer, Kamala Sankaram is known for her “blazing high notes” (The Wall Street Journal) and her “strikingly original” (New York Times) music. Moving freely between the worlds of experimental music, creative music, and contemporary opera, notable appearances include the role of Gwen St. Clair in Meredith Monk’s ATLAS with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, as well as at festivals in the US and internationally. Kamala is the leader of Bombay Rickey, an operatic Bollywood surf ensemble whose accolades include two awards for Best Eclectic Album from the Independent Music Awards. Recent commissions include Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, the PROTOTYPE Festival, and Shakespeare Theatre Company, among others. kamalasankaram.com
Caroline Shaw
is a New-York-based musician—vocalist, violinist, composer, and producer—who performs in solo and collaborative projects. She was the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013 for Partita for 8 Voices, written for the Grammy-winning Roomful of Teeth, of which she is a member. Recent commissions include new works for Renée Fleming with Inon Barnatan, Dawn Upshaw with Sō Percussion and Gil Kalish, Seattle Symphony, Anne Sofie von Otter with Philharmonia Baroque, the LA Philharmonic, Juilliard 415, and Roomful of Teeth with A Far Cry. She has produced for Kanye West (The Life of Pablo; Ye) and Nas (NASIR), and has contributed to records by The National, and by Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry. carolineshaw.com
Gelsey Bell
is a singer, songwriter, and scholar. She has been described by The New York Times as “a charismatic and fiercely intelligent performer” whose performance of her own music is “virtuosic” and “glorious noise.” She is a core member of thingNY, Varispeed, and The Chutneys. Performance highlights include Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812 (Broadway) and Ghost Quartet, Robert Ashley’s Improvement and Crash, Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler’s River of Fundament, Kate Soper’s Here Be Sirens, and Gregory Whitehead’s On the Shore Dimly Seen. gelseybell.com
Rachel Calloway
brings versatility and compelling insight to stages worldwide. Her work has been praised by The New York Times for “penetrating clarity” and “considerable depth of expression” and by Opera News for her “adept musicianship and dramatic flair.” Recent performances include a California Symphony debut in works by Gabriela Lena Frank and Mahler, and performances and residencies with Duo Cortona, alongside violinist Ari Streisfeld. She has appeared in concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Series, the New York Philharmonic, and Ojai Festival, and has performed with Opera Philadelphia, the PROTOTYPE Festival, and the Glimmerglass Festival. Calloway can be heard on Albany Records, Tzadik Records, BCMF Records, and Toccata Classics. rachelcalloway.com
Lucy Shelton
The only winner of two Walter W. Naumburg Awards—for both chamber music and solo singing—American soprano Lucy Shelton is an internationally recognized exponent of 20th and 21st century repertory. Notable among her numerous world premieres are Elliott Carter’s Tempo e Tempi and Of Challenge and Of Love, and Oliver Knussen’s Whitman Settings. Shelton has excelled in theatrical works, including Luigi Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero (her BBC Proms debut) and numerous staged productions of Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. Among the major orchestras with which she has worked are those of Amsterdam, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Denver, London, New York, Paris, Cologne, Munich, and Tokyo. lucyshelton.com
Anaïs Maviel
is a vocalist, percussionist, composer, writer, and community facilitator. Her work focuses on the function of music as essential to settling common grounds, addressing Relation, and creating a utopian future. As a leader she is dedicated to substantial creations from solo to large ensembles, music direction of cross-disciplinary works, and to expanding the power of music as a healing and transformative act. She performs and teaches extensively in New York, throughout North, South and Central America, and in Europe. She is the 2019 recipient of the Van Lier Fellowship and the 2020 recipient of the American Composers Forum Create commission program, alongside string quartet The Rhythm Method. anaismaviel.com
Sofia Jernberg
is a Swedish experimental singer, composer, improviser and performer, born in Ethiopia, 1983. She grew up in Ethiopia, Vietnam and Sweden. One of her deepest interests as a singer is to explore the “instrumental” possibilities of the voice. Her singing vocabulary includes sounds and techniques that often contradict a conventional singing style. She has dug deep into non verbal vocalizing, split tone singing, pitchless singing and distorted singing. As a composer she has been commissioned by Stockholm Jazz Festival, Vocal Ensemble Oslo 14, KLANG Copenhagen Avantgarde Music Festival, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, The Gothenburg Combo, Opera Nord, and various chamber ensembles.
