Vocalise
(2022)
for male voice, live electronics and text
Program notes
This work holds great importance for me, given that it was the first piece I ever wrote for myself to perform and is one of the most personal and emotionally charged projects I have ever tackled. Autobiographical to a great extent, creating this work involved uncovering deeply rooted trauma and insecurities of the past, aiming to examine themes of masculinity, self-discovery, isolation, anxiety and acceptance. A look back into the past as a catalyst for closure, with the voice at its musical, conceptual and emotional core.
The vocal performance in the piece is abstract and wordless, put into context through the inclusion of text, 5 excerpts of a poem I wrote which are to be projected behind the vocalist at specific points in the performance.
The electronic part of the piece also includes references to preexisting works which hold great personal relevance. After the opening explorative section, a series of vocoders manipulate the frozen voice of the singer into Tomás Luis de Victoria's motet Quam pulchri sunt, one of my most beloved choral works and a loving reminder my choral upbringing as a young teenager. The piece also includes several distorted samples from Jorge Drexler's 'Al otro lado del río', a song with complex personal undertones which I struggled to face and tackle for a long time. The resolution of the piece, which presents a longer sample of the song, ends with an overlap of myself singing it, representing healing and closure from the emotional baggage of the past.
Duration: c. 10-15'
Performance
28.05.2022 – HKB à suivre Festival, Hochschule der Künste Bern (CH)
Performer: José del Avellanal