EXAUDI
MMus Showcase 2024

Maki Gajic Murata

Articulation (2024, world premiere)

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A spiritual journey. The human soul restlessly wanders, searching for something “more”, and finally discovers sunlight and a kaleidoscope of colour.

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Theo Finkel

I Have A Garment (2024, world premiere)

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The poem is taken from Abaraham Ibn Ezra (1089–1167), a renowned Jewish biblical commentator and philosopher who lived in Muslim Spain. The translation is by David Goldstein. 

 

Thank you very much to EXAUDI and James Weeks. It has been a wonderful experience to work with them.

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Zesses Seglias

lonesingness (2010)

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lonesingness is an effort at a sonic depiction of E. E. Cummings’s poem, l(a. 

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Anian Wiedner

Traité de diététique en occitan (2024, world premiere)

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Ianoier – Febrier – Mars

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This piece is setting a text in the old-Occitan language. Occitan is a minority language that is mainly spoken in the south of France and closely related to Italian, Catalan and French. Old-Occitan is its medieval predecessor and is the language of the troubadours. The text of this piece is from an unknown author and sets out a number of dietary rules that should be followed throughout the year. Like a calendar, the source text goes through each of the months and sets out rules for every single month. This piece sets the text for January, February, and March.

 

The original manuscript of the text from the 14th century can be found in the British Library in London.

 

Thank you to my brother, Marinus, who introduced me to this beautiful language and this text through his PhD research in linguistics and without whom this piece would not have been possible!

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Darius Paymai

love song (2024, world premiere)

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I had wanted to work with the poetry of William Carlos Williams for some time, and I found Love Song (1917) to resonate well with some of the musical ideas I had in mind for EXAUDI. Williams’ poem expresses an experience of love with its coexistent hazy confusion and moments of clarity, filtered through his keen observational gaze upon the natural world, and is bookended by powerful addresses to the second person:

 

I lie here thinking of you:– 

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you far off there under 

the wine-red selvage of the west!

 

I worked with some found musical material, mainly from J.S. Bach and Robert Schumann: stretching, extrapolating, repeating, and layering the melodies to examine relationships between them and between the six different voices.

 

With many thanks to James and EXAUDI.

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Reuben Esterhuizen

From Isaiah (2024, world premiere)

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This piece uses a short excerpt from Agnes Martin's essay The Untroubled Mind as a text. I find Martin's words and paintings to be wonderful.

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While writing this piece, Agnes Martin was in my mind. I was also thinking about taking things away and adding other things. Making and breaking patterns. Re-iteration and re-ordering. The piece, breathing.

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"I don't have any ideas myself. I have a vacant mind. In order to do exactly what the inspiration calls for."

– Agnes Martin

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Thank you to Paul for his advice and encouragement, and to EXAUDI.

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James Weeks

Bede’s Death Song (2022, world premiere)

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A setting of an 8th-century poem attributed to Bede. The poem is written in Anglo-Saxon (Old English) in the Northumbrian dialect. According to the testimony of a disciple of Bede’s, the poem was dictated by him on his deathbed, though attribution is not certain. Bede fell ill, ‘with frequent attacks of breathlessness and almost without pain’, just before Easter 735, and died on Ascension Day. The setting alludes to some of the circumstances of the poem’s presumed creation: the melodic drops from higher and lower register suggest failing vocal strength, and the whistles evoke wheezing breath.

 

Before the necessary journey, no-one will be

wiser in thought than he needs to be,

to think, before he goes from here,

about what of his spirit, of good or of evil,

will be judged after his death-day.

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Zhouer Zhou

Intro to Plumbing (2024, world premiere)

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In the confines of a neglected apartment, a sad plumber grapples with the mundane task of unclogging a stubborn toilet. Amidst the relentless drip of a leaky faucet and the echo of the plumber’s own frustrations, they embark on a poignant journey of self-discovery. As the plumber wrestles with rusty pipes and worn-out tools, they confront their own inadequacies, regrets, and the fragility of the plumber’s existence.

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Gregory May

After Eights (2024, world premiere)

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I. Entrance Music

II. Riddle

III. False Love

IV. A Word of Advice

V. Riddle Redux

VI. Leb' Wohl

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This is a small collection of pieces, designed with the idea of ‘social’ singing with friends strongly in mind. I've taken my lead from John Aldrich's book of catches, and have tried to evoke the playful atmosphere of this 18th century book in my own little collection.

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‘Entrance Music’ does what it says on the tin - it introduces the voices one by one, with a waltz bubbling beneath the surface the whole time. The countertenor interrupts proceedings to tell a riddle in the second piece, while the third is a heartfelt lament over a ‘false love’. The fourth piece gives playful advice regarding the art of singing a catch, and the fifth ‘solves’ the countertenor’s riddle through singing a catch. The final piece is a sad farewell, however the atmosphere is hazy and strange, with a misremembered quotation of Purcell's Dido's Lament emerging as the other voices fade away.