The Congregation Between the Induction of my Divine Impulse is Exalted (2019)
For ensemble and electronics.
First performed by Trinity Laban Contemporary Music Group, cond. Gregory Rose at Blackheath Halls, 23 October 2019.
For a detailed description of this work see chapter 2 of my PhD thesis (notated materials can be found in the appendix).
The edited video below gives an idea of how the performance proceeded; the complete performance is below that.
First performed by Trinity Laban Contemporary Music Group, cond. Gregory Rose at Blackheath Halls, 23 October 2019.
For a detailed description of this work see chapter 2 of my PhD thesis (notated materials can be found in the appendix).
The edited video below gives an idea of how the performance proceeded; the complete performance is below that.
Edit (ca. 5'):
Full performance (ca. 40'):
Programme note from the performance in 2019
This piece is a kind of collaboration, but one in which one of the collaborators has ceded control of their work. Soosan Lolavar’s cello concerto Tradition-Hybrid-Survival was premiered by Trinity Laban Contemporary Music Group in June 2019. It is a piece that reflects on Soosan’s own mixed Iranian-UK heritage, and the way in which traditions and ways of life are preserved, transformed and distorted through the shifting perspectives of an indigenous people, the diaspora of that community that has spread to other parts of the world, and interlopers who encounter the traditions, either in their original locus or in their transformed diaspora state, as outsiders.
The current work is based on material from Tradition-Hybrid-Survival and takes these ideas a step further. The extravagant title was generated by a process of translating the source work’s title between English, Farsi and Arabic and back again to produce something that maintains only the most tenuous connection with its original form.
Notions of purity are always suspect. There is no pure culture, everything is ultimately derived or stolen from somewhere else, and indeed a vibrant culture depends to some extent on this appropriation. What is key is that we acknowledge this, and try to understand that which we make use of, and try to ensure that it enriches and transforms our own culture rather than be swamped by it.
This piece is a kind of collaboration, but one in which one of the collaborators has ceded control of their work. Soosan Lolavar’s cello concerto Tradition-Hybrid-Survival was premiered by Trinity Laban Contemporary Music Group in June 2019. It is a piece that reflects on Soosan’s own mixed Iranian-UK heritage, and the way in which traditions and ways of life are preserved, transformed and distorted through the shifting perspectives of an indigenous people, the diaspora of that community that has spread to other parts of the world, and interlopers who encounter the traditions, either in their original locus or in their transformed diaspora state, as outsiders.
The current work is based on material from Tradition-Hybrid-Survival and takes these ideas a step further. The extravagant title was generated by a process of translating the source work’s title between English, Farsi and Arabic and back again to produce something that maintains only the most tenuous connection with its original form.
Notions of purity are always suspect. There is no pure culture, everything is ultimately derived or stolen from somewhere else, and indeed a vibrant culture depends to some extent on this appropriation. What is key is that we acknowledge this, and try to understand that which we make use of, and try to ensure that it enriches and transforms our own culture rather than be swamped by it.