Ctrl+Y
(for four performers and live electronics)
[2021]
DURATION:
ca. 40'
INSTRUMENTATION:
Flute (or cello *)
Guitar
Sampler keyboard
Percussion (7 objects chosen by the performer. More info in score)
(All doubling computer keyboards and voice)
Live electronics in Max
* A second version was made for Ensemble K!ART (cello, guitar, sampler keyboard and percussion). Please get in touch if you would like to play this version
First performed by Curious Chamber Players @ Musikhuset Aarhus, May 2021
DOCUMENTATION:
Performed by Curious Chamber Players
Flute - Hannah Törnell Wettermark
Guitar - Frederik Munk Larsen
Sampler keyboard - Anna Christensson
Percussion - Rei Munakata
Video production: Klavs Kehlet Hansen
Sound technicians: Morten Elkjær and Henrik Vinther Hansen
Post-production audio: Matthew Grouse
--
V2 Excerpts
Ung Nordisk Musik Reykjavík 2022: co·structing CTRL+Y
19 August 2022, 17:00 tóma rýmið
Performed by K!ART (guitar: Mikkel Schou - cello: Ida Nørby - percussion: Hsiao-Tung Yuan - keyboard: Rob Durnin)
Video: Patrik Ontkovic
Audio: Þogrímur Þorsteinsson
About the work:
Influenced by Viktor Shklovsky’s notion of de-familiarisation, ctrl+Y aims to twist common aspects of everyday life, making them strange and uncanny to refresh and challenge our perspectives on the familiar.
A ubiquitous part of our mediated daily lives, the QWERTY keyboard sits at the centre of the work. The keyboard’s inherent, expressive musical potential is unveiled through the amplification and filtering of key presses, the translation of its data stream into frequency information, fed to synthesisers, and its recasting as a sampler instrument that triggers recordings of personal interviews with the performers, as well as their instrumental playing. ctrl+Y explores repetition involved in the everyday activities of the ensemble, and repetition as a vehicle to build cognitive and motoric fluency over time. The fluency here pertains to learning and speaking a foreign language, playing their instruments, and communicating by typing at a computer keyboard. The assimilation of instrumental practice with common, repetitive tasks such as admin-driven typing hints at the inseparability of music from everyday experience.
Created with support from KODA Kultur and Dansk Komponist Forening
PERFORMANCES:
Ensemble K!ART - Ung Nordisk Musik Iceland 19.08.22 Tóma Rýmið, Reykjavík, Iceland - 17.00
Ensemble K!ART - 09.08.22 ungK, Aarhus - 20.00
Ensemble K!ART - 06.08.22 Koncertkirken, Copenhagen - 20.00
Ensemble K!ART - MINU_festival_for_expanded_music 19.11.21 Christianshavn Beboerhus, Copenhagen - 20.00
Curious Chamber Players - 10.05.21 Rytmisk Sal, Musikhuset, Aarhus - 20.00