Unbound
Program Notes
Sonnet Curé - Human Fish
Voice and Electronics ~ 15 minutes
Human Fish is an electronic vocal performance listening to a siren sing without her ocean or her voice. The piece draws heavy inspiration from the children’s classic The Little Mermaid, exploring the sacrifice and heartache of trying to exist between two worlds. This piece explores the tension between identity and environment: why do we choose to stay and survive in places we cannot necessarily emotionally, physically and biologically endure?
Vocal fragments, breath, water, and digital manipulation together form the electronic sonic landscape of this piece. This piece uses digital feedback, loud unexpected noises as well as automated volume and filters that alter the synths and vocals throughout. This piece is lush and mainly synth and vocals. The siren sings because it is all she has ever known.
Human Fish is both a lament and a reminder to interrogate where you are right now, and to ask whether that place is truly where you belong. For what is a voice without a song, and a fish without a sea?
VISUAL DESCRIPTION The work opens on a bathroom shower curtain that is spotlight by a warm light behind it. The shower curtain is clear and frosted with subtle but intricate crest patterns on it. You can see the silhouette of a mermaid in a bathtub. As well as the silhouette of an old-style crooner microphone and a midi keyboard with bright flashing colourful lights. There is a yellow rotary phone that sits to the left of the bathtub on a velvet pedestal, which is in clear view and not obstructed by the curtain. Near the end of the piece (at about the 7 minute mark) As the mermaid sings higher and higher and it gets more and more strenuous for her, a warm red light appears to start coming up her throat. Eventually it surfaces out of her mouth and she holds it in her hands before letting it absorb into her chest.
Oliver House with Zoe Morgan and Alon Ilsar - Charge
- 20 mins
Charge features innovative collaborations that bridge the gap between technology and bodily movement. Percussionist and inventor Alon Ilsar shares his AirSticks—wearable devices that transform movement into sound—with Oliver House, a wheelchair dancer. In this new devised work, Oliver will perform a new piece, ‘Charge,’ with dancer Zoe Morgan and Alon on drums.
The AirSticks are a wearable gestural digital musical instrument that convert movement into sound. In this performance, they will be worn in the gloves of wheelchair dancer, Oliver House, accompanied by percussionist Alon Ilsar and dancer Zoe Morgan.
The piece is divided into four sections defined by different AirSticks sounds and dance movement tasks. For the opening, the sound of drones are triggered as Oliver wheels himself centre stage, trying to find a comfortable position on his chair, and attempting to move without triggering any sound. With the AirSticks turned up to full sensitivity, every attempt translates to slowly evolving drones, representing the horror of insomnia.
In the second section, Oliver controls more rhythmic elements, triggering the sounds of the inside of a piano, and using his wheels are drums to activate more percussive sounds. He changes his pacing around the stage and charges forward.
In the third section, Oliver's hypnotic backwards rolling creates a nostalgic soundscape made of reverse guitars
In the final section, Oliver's AirSticks are mapped to drum sounds, battling Alon's acoustic drums until they merge in a celebratory groove.
VISUAL DESCRIPTION: The piece starts with a drummer presenting the work from behind his kit. Once he sits down, a wheelchair dancer wearing all black with black and blue gloves comes on slowly, side by side with a dancer also wearing all black walking slowly. They find centre stage, but the second dancer continues to slowly walk off. The wheelchair dancer pauses. It is revealed that he is controlling the music with the gloves. He begins to find different seemingly uncomfortable positions on the wheelchair, lying across the chair.
He then rolls back and begins to accelerate towards different audience members seated in the front row, stopping just before them. The music continues to be controlled by his arm movements. He also charges at the drummer.
He then begins to roll backwards in a circle on the stage counter clockwise as the second dancer comes back on. They find poses and mirror each other gracefully.
They come to a stop, and the wheelchair dancer begins to air drum, with the chaotic sound of drums echoing against the real acoustic drums. A rhythm begins to emerge and the dancers begin to move joyfully. They manipulate and inspire each other to move. They find a resting spot together as the music echos out and comes to an end.SHORT INTERVAL
Melanie Eden - No One To Be
- Melanie Eden vocals with Clayton Thomas Double Bass and Jim Denley Winds. - 20 mins
Content Warning: Please be aware that No One To Be by Melanie Eden addresses strong content including, suicide, pychiatric harm , alleged child sexual abuse, drug use and violence. There will also be strong language. Audience will invited to extend their interval if they would prefer to not be in the space for this piece. They can then join us in the space for the final piece.
No One To Be is a transdisciplinary work combining live performance and film where artist Melanie Eden processes personal and familial trauma through telling her story and song.
With imagery and field footage by video artist Mischa Baka, the piece is a deeply personal exploration of the author’s history of institutional child sex abuse. Influenced by First Nations culture, the work ruminates on the question “where do I come from?” In creating this work, Melanie investigated her father's history - one of child sex abuse within the Catholic Church and the silencing and enabling of many layers thereafter. From learning her ancestors' story, she has been compelled to grapple with the memory of incest of her own. The artwork’s central creative motivation is to serve as a way of reckoning with historical harms, and what reparative action looks like.
The music's foundation lies in Buddhist teachings applied to singing. Melanie’s creative practice is guided by Ānāpānasati Sutta, a process that includes contemplating the body and mind, experiencing impermanence, the concept of the non-self and the ultimate goal of letting go. She is exploring how to translate these states—from stillness to rapture—into a musical and visual experience.
The work's soundscape is rooted in improvisation, a form Melanie has cultivated with gratitude for collaborators like Clayton Thomas and Jim Denley. Their spontaneous approach honors the evolving nature of her creative journey, blurring the lines between art, spirituality, and advocacy. No One To Be is a testament to the idea that a work's meaning is found as much in its making as in its final form.
Lyrics
I was trying to cry
But the tears wouldn’t roll down my eyes
but there’s no one to be anymoreI was trying to know
Then I grasped at everything that would go
And I reaped when I could have just sown
but there’s no one to be anymoreThere’s no one to be
There’s nowhere to go
There’s nothing to do
There’s no more to know
There’s no one to be anymore…I was trying to lie
But the words couldn’t get me on by
And the world became false as I tried
But there’s no one to be anymoreThere’s no one to be
There’s nowhere to go
There’s nothing to do
There’s no more to know
There’s no one to be anymore…And we hold on to hope
But sometimes it draws us closer and closer to a rope
And the blues weigh us down as we swim
And I’m trying as hard as I can
But somehow I’d forgotten I can reach out and hold my own hand.There’s no one to be
There’s nowhere to go
There’s nothing, nothing to do
There’s no more to know
There’s no one to be anymore…Molly Joyce - Form (conform and reform)
for voice, clarinet, percussion and flute ~ 11 mins
Form is a song cycle centering on physical conformation, deformation, reformation, and transformation themes. Much of my artistic work focuses on creating an aesthetic grounded in physical impairment, and I thus believe that these themes are central to the social construction of disability and its surrounding parameters.
Therefore with the songs, I hope to not only counter previously-constructed views and notions regarding disability but also bring into question why and how these impressions are established. As I have a physically-impaired left hand due to a previous car accident, it has become incredibly important to me to engage with the social construction of disability and call into question whether or not this construction can be challenged, if not even transformed, to suggest a physicality beyond ability and beyond comparison.
Form was written in 2017-18 throughout the US and Europe, and was commissioned by the VONK Ensemble with support from the Fonds Podiumkunsten. The cycle is also dedicated to the VONK Ensemble, to whom I am immensely grateful for their dedication and efforts throughout the creative process.
Two movements from Molly Joyce’s work Form have been re-arranged by Molly Joyce for Voice, Flute, Clarinets and Vibraphone. Titled Conform and Reform, these movements will be performed by soprano Ria Andriani, flautist Lamorna Nightingale, clarinettist Jason Noble and percussionist Claire Edwardes. The overall work Form is a song cycle exploring themes surrounding physical conformation, deformation, reformation, and transformation.
Conform creates a reflective and meditative atmosphere through long, held notes by flute and clarinet and a repetitive vibraphone pattern that underpins much of this movement. There are repeated patterns in the clarinet and flute line later in the movement, but these are not loud or percussive. Much of the soprano line is in quite a high register but is at a soft volume. There are no sudden loud noises or repetitive drumming in this movement. Conform is 5 minutes and 30 seconds long but this timing may vary slightly in performance.
LYRICS by Molly Joyce
CONFORM
I conform to you
I conform to to you
and you
I want to deform
I want to reform
Tell me
Why do I conform to you
REFORM
reform
into the real you the final you
reform
into the real you the final you the model you
reform
transform
deform
don' t conform
just reform
into the picture of you
into the body of you
into the ideal of you the silence of you
the image of you
can you reform for me and them
can you reform for me and you
break through
your truth
into the new
and lose your abuse
for me
for you
oh reform
into the real you the final you
reform
into the real you the model you
for me
for you
for me