photo: Carlos Juica
Chords for Calling
Vocal composition and performance for six performers
Music and direction Stine Janvin
Performers Evelyn Sailor, Audrey Chen, Liina Magnea, Elisabetta Lanfredini, Cansu Tanrikulu and Stine Janvin
Costumes Don Aretino x Muyao Zhang
Commissioned by Deutschlandradio Kultur, broadcast February 18th 2021 and performed live at Daadgalerie in Berlin on June 11th 2021.
Supported by Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD
https://www.hoerspielundfeature.de/klangkunst-inspiriert-von-norwegischer-vokalmusik-art-s-100.html
To counter the current tendencies towards isolation and social distancing, Stine Janvin used this occasion to develop a piece for multiple performers. Compulsory social distancing rules are not thought of here as a necessary evil but as a central aesthetic element.
The project is inspired by the tradition of Norwegian Lokk singing – a mixture of calling and singing with significant ornamentation and microtonal tuning traditionally – used in earlier times by the milkmaid to call animals home from the grazing fields. In order to bridge the often-great geographical distances between caller and animals, high pitches were preferred and the voice amplified as it echoed through the valleys, mountains, and forests of the landscape. Chords for Calling is a reworking and adaptation of an archive recording of a cattle call after Karoline Bergseth.
Janvin translates and adapts this age-old, oral solo tradition for the big city: Chords for Calling is an ensemble piece for six performers in an outdoor setting in the city center of Berlin. The urban landscape is used to amplify the six voices located at significant distances from one another. With these calls, Stine Janvin not only seeks to intensify her current research into just intonation and the Lokk tradition and transform it into a composition, but above all to also send a signal that in these times in particular we need to find ways to affirm our sociality and reinforce community beyond our closest circles.