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10-14 October: KVAST 10-year anniversary Festival!
Much fine music to be heard in Stockholm, October 10-14 at Konserthuset, in celebration of the 10th anniversay of KVAST (Swedish women composers’ organization)!
I am honored that Göteborg’s outstanding flute quartet 40F will perform a my quartet ‘Mot blått‘ (Towards Blue) for 2 alto and 2 bass flutes, which they commissioned in 2016 (with funding from the Swedish Arts Council). The concert is Sunday 14 Oktober at 13:00 in Grünewaldsalen, also with music of four fine composers: Malin Bång, Anna Eriksson, Madeleine Isaksson and Ida Lundén. Playing in 40f: Anna Svensdotter, Ann Elkjär, Jill Widén, Åsa Karlberg.
40F flute quartet
Looking forward to the whole weekend, and looking forward to seeing some familiar faces!
Statens kunstnerstipend
I am so honored to have received a 4-year composition grant (Statens Kunstnerstipend), from Arts Council Norway! What an amazing opportunity to focus even more deeply on my work. Thank you!
Mantra, for gamelan and sinfonietta
My piece Mantra, for gamelan and sinfonietta, was released by BIS Records in October 2018!
Recorded by Trondheim Sinfonietta at Kimen Kulturhus (Stjørdal, Norway)
Kai Grinde Myrann, conductor
Espen Aalberg, gamelan
I am very pleased to share Trondheim Sinfonietta’s 20th-anniversary album with three fine composers: Toshio Hosohawa, Bent Sørensen and Kristin Norderval.
Mantra was commissioned by Espen Aalberg, and funded by Arts Council Norway (Norsk Kulturråd). This album is supported by The Norwegian Society of Composers, the Fund for Performing Musicians (FFUK) and Kimen Kulturhus.
‘Recommended’ by MusicWeb International:
“Seemingly disparate works, all enjoyable, but Lindquist’s gamelan concerto is a revelation.”
“…While all of these pieces demonstrate their composers’ capacity for imaginative instrumental colours and deserve focused, concentrated listening, I have to say that I found Ellen Lindquist’s gamelan concerto Mantra to be one of those rare experiences which offered something completely different; music of integrity and humility yet rich in adventure and daring in its ambition. In this magnificent performance by these Norwegian musicians, and in superb BIS surround sound, it completely blew me away.”
—Richard Hanlon (read full review)
CD Review from Expresso (Portugal’s leading weekly newspaper):
“…Ellen Lindquist’s “Mantra” feels practically restorative: scored for gamelan, and thirteen exquisitely (re)tuned instruments, the work is a marvelous showcase of ingenuity and sensitivity, without any superfluous bric-a-brac and cheap, thrift store chinoiserie. It has a very charming, ecumenical innocence and the sort of spontaneity someone like Steiner would refer to as extraterritorial – built with concentric, ethereal patterns, albeit spectacularly telluric, a geologist would describe it as a beautiful Liesegang ring made of soluble salts. Actually, it sounds as the very salt of life.” (translated from the Portuguese)
—João Santos
Here is a short film about the project made by Alice Winnberg, followed by a short documentary made for NTNU Institute for Music by Martin Kristoffersen:
https://musikk.hf.ntnu.no/2018/10/05/dokumentar-om-mantra/
Program Notes (by Nick Breckenfield, from BIS CD booklet):
Mantra has a title that in itself indicates its eastern
inspiration, specifically the unique sound-world of Indonesia’s gamelan orchestra,
with its constituent parts of not only a series of distinctive chiming instruments
(metallophones, xylophones, gongs etc.), but also bowed, plucked instruments and
drums, which dates back to the Indonesian Majapahit Empire (1293–c. 1500).
Anyone who has experienced a traditional all-night Indonesian shadow-puppet
show, a wayang kulit, will testify to the mesmeric quality of the repetitive music.
Mantra (2016) was jointly commissioned by the performers on this world pre –
mière recording, the percussionist and gamelan player Espen Aalberg and the
Trondheim Sinfonietta, with support from Arts Council Norway. It was first per –
formed at the Trondheim Open festival on 11th November 2016. Having made par –
ticular study of the overtone sequences of the Indonesian instru ments, Lindquist
has retuned the Sinfonietta’s instruments to chime (forgive the pun) with those of
the gamelan. Over an extended soundscape and at an almost-exclusively slow
tempo, Mantra subtly revels in ever-changing intonation, con juring almost a fourth
dimension that seems to stretch back in time.
Lindquist explains: ‘In traditional Indonesian gamelan music, it was believed
that the soul of the entire gamelan was found in the gong ageng, the lowest (and
usually largest) of the hanging gongs, which was said to be used to summon the
gods. More complex messages could be sent with the gamelan’s other hanging
gongs. Mantra was inspired by this concept, and the piece was built using spectral
analysis of the six large hanging gongs in the instrument collection. The soloist in
Mantra plays many different gamelan instruments, and some material for the piece
was developed in an improvisation-based process.
‘The word mantra comes originally from Sanskrit; a simple idea (a word, sound
or phrase) repeated over and over, used to enter a meditative state, the very repeti –
tion aiding concentration. In Mantra this concept exists fractally on several different
overlapping layers of time, manifesting as everything from a single event, to a short
phrase, to the solo gong melody stretched over the length of the piece.’
Lindquist’s score looks deceptively standard: single winds – although unusually
it is the low wind instruments (cor anglais, bass clarinet and double bassoon) that
join the flute – with horn, trumpet, trombone, harp and strings, in addition to the
gamelan player. Despite the visual cornucopia of actual instruments, the gamelan
is notated often on a single stave, occasionally two, with a written indication as to
which instrument – gangsa, Balinese reyong, Javanese reyong, siter, gong ageng
etc. – while the ensemble’s instrumental parts are suffused with pitch instructions
to match the gamelan.
As indicated by the devotional title, this is a 25-minute reverential hymn full of
subtle teeming detail and delicate instrumental partnerships, set off by the harp and
gamelan, out of which develops an important recurring quaver motif, beginning
and ending with a dotted quaver, as if the repeated mantra of the title. The medi –
tation is glacially slow, but more important is the opening instruction: ‘Still, ex –
pectant,’ as if the message is that we need to give ourselves the occasional elongated
time span to think calmly. The interaction between eastern and western instruments,
both unusual and also timeless, encourages us to do just that: to breathe deeply and
lose ourselves in an other-worldly soundscape to assuage the travails of the modern
world.
Upcoming solo piece for Michael Francis Duch
Looking forward to beginning work on a new solo piece for contrabassist Michael Francis Duch!
Funded by Komponistenes vederlagsfond.
Recording with MSR Classical Records
By the end of 2018, Mariana Gariazzo‘s debut CD Revelations will be released by MCR Classics. The album consists of contemporary, unaccompanied music for alto and bass flute, including my piece Nakoda.
Recording of Nakoda with Redshift Records
I’m very pleased to announce that flutist Mark Takeshi McGregor will record my amplified alto flute piece Nakoda on Redshift Records in 2017. He’ll also perform it on Redshift Music Society concerts in Vancouver, Canada. Looking forward!
New Oboe Music Project
I was very pleased that the New Oboe Music Project chose to feature my music recently.
“This month’s featured composer is one who has written particularly striking and beautiful music for the oboe. It was in 2007 that I heard Ellen’s piece Zosa performed by Laura Karney in Germany. I was immediately struck by how very well she had made use of multiphonics and techniques such as having the oboe play into the piano. Ellen really understood the instrument very well and has composed works that are very strong additions to the repertoire.”
Many Thousand Gone
solo piece for cello and voice (single player)
Commissioned by Marianne Baudouin Lie for solo cello and voice (one player), Many Thousand Gone draws inspiration from on an old African-American folk song of the same name. Premiered in February 2017, Many Thousand Gone expresses my reaction to the ongoing refugee crisis.
This ‘story’, told with music and fragments of folksongs, is based on the enormous diversity of stories which I have learned from refugee friends, and read in the media. Those of us who have grown up in relatively peaceful countries cannot truly understand what it means to have to flee from one’s homeland. The closest I have come to understanding comes from my deep empathetic response — having a young child myself — to mothers who have fled with infants and young children. What must it be like to undertake such a journey while also doing your best to care for your children? I cannot imagine. This ‘story’ for cello and voice is told from the perspective of a mother, remembering. Fragments of two folksongs, one American and one Norwegian, are woven into the piece: ‘Many Thousand Gone’ is an American slave spiritual from the mid-1800s, and ‘Vi har ei tulle’ by Margrethe Munthe about absolute love for one’s child…something which is the same across all cultures.
Funded by The Norwegian Composers Fund (Det Norsk Komponistfondet).
Many Thousand Gone (a few verses)
…No more slavery chains for me | No more, no more
No more slavery chains for me | Many thousand gone
No more children stole from me | No more, no more
No more children stole from me | Many thousand gone…
Vi har ei tulle (first verse)
Vi har ei tulle med øyne blå, | med silkehår og med ører små
Og midt i fjeset en liten nese | -så stor som så….
Alpaca Ensemble spiller Ellen Lindquist: nattkonsert på Trefestivalen i Trondheim
Torsdag 25. september • kl. 22.30
Gulbrygga, 27 Kjøpmannsgata • Trondheim, Norge
Under Holzbau Nordic konferansen presenterer Trondheim kommune og Trefestivalen Trondheims Alpaca Ensemble, som spiller en spesiell nattkonsert som avslutning av Trefestivalen.
På programmet er flere av solo- og kammerverkene mine for en trio av treinstrumenter…cello, klarinett og marimba. Konserten finnes sted i Gulbrygga, en av de fine gamle trebryggene ved Nidelven. Velkommen!
Alpaca Ensemble
Marianne Baudouin Lie • cello
Rik de Geyter • klarinett
Anders Kristiansen • marimba
Biljetter ved inngangen: 100 nok
English:
The Holzbau Nordic Wood Building Conference and the city of Trondheim present Trondheim’s Alpaca Ensemble, who will play a special night concert as the closing event for the Wood Festival. On the program are solo and chamber works by American composer Ellen Lindquist (living in Norway) for a trio of wooden instruments…cello, clarinet and marimba. The concert will take place in Gulbrygga, one of the beautiful old wooden warehouse buildings downtown along the Nidelven river. Welcome!
Vlaams Sinfonietta premieres ‘Folk Songs’ on October 3
Vlaams Sinfonietta with Olga Romanko, soprano
Raf de Keninck, conductor
The Vlaams Sinfonietta has commissioned me and 4 other composers to compose new pieces based on folk songs from our respective countries. The project is inspired by Luciano’s 1964 piece titled ‘Folk Songs’, a cycle of 11 songs based on folk songs from different countries, which will also be on the program. Premiere on October 3. More information here.
Vlaams Sinfonietta o.l.v. Raf De Keninck
M.m.v. Olga Romanko, sopraan
In 1964 schreef Luciano Berio zijn “Folk Songs”: een cyclus van elf liederen, deels bestaande volksliederen die in een eigentijds ritmisch en harmonisch jasje gestoken werden, deels nieuwe composities, geïnspireerd op volksmuziek uit Sardinië, Armenië, de USA,…
Een zevenkoppig ensemble becommentarieert de melodie van de mezzo-sopraan.
Vlaams Sinfonietta trekt dit idee open naar de multiculturele realiteit van onze samenleving. Componisten uit de landen van herkomst van veel van onze “nieuwe Belgen” gaan aan de slag met volksliederen uit het land waar hun roots liggen: Nederland, Griekenland, Koerdistan, USA, Turkije.
Alpaca Ensemble Plays Ellen Lindquist
Friday 4 april • 1 p.m. • Rein kirke • Rissa • Norge: Opening of KULMIN
Saturday 26 april • 3 p.m. • Huskonsert i Rissa more information
Sunday 27 april • 1 p.m. • Ilen kirke • Trondheim more information
Flute quartet for 40F
I’m looking forward to a brand-new project for flute quartet with Göteborg’s fantastic 40F! Premiere will be in 2016…will post more info as it comes.
Birds
Photo by Hans Falklind
Cecilia Ekmark commissioned me (thanks to generous funding from Statensmusikverk) to write a new piece for flute(s) and piano (Roger Johansson), inspired both by Hans Falklind‘s bird photographs and birdsong, for her ongoing project called Birds. This project is also supported by Sveriges ornitologiska förening (SOF) and BirdLife International. We met twice in Göteborg to develop material through improvisation, which I have now used as raw material to create the piece. Tomas Tranströmer’s early poem ‘Preludium’ is woven throughout the piece, which is titled ‘Vingarna breddas’ (‘The Wings Spread’). The project premiered 26 May 2013 in Gothenburg’s 3.e Våningen.
The Zoco Duo
I am writing a new piece for the Zoco Duo (Barcelona, Spain):
Laura Karney, oboe and English horn
Jacob Cordover, guitar
