A bold and ethereal showcase filled with sonic invention and rich poetry delivered by multi-talented composers, musicians and artists.
A highlight of recent Wigmore Hall concert seasons is their ‘Voices of Today’ series, a new music commissioning programme which platforms exciting contemporary composers. On the 22nd of February, it was composer Alex Tay’s day, which he shared with EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble (Cressida Sharp, David de Winter, Simon Whiteley, Tom Williams and James Weeks) and the piano and percussion duo GBSR (Siwan Rhys and George Barton). With music by Linda Caitlin Smith, Cassie Kinoshi, Joe Bates and Alex Tay, the two groups of performers merged seamlessly to navigate through microtonal textures, electronic manipulation, and epic literary stories.
Welcomed by ethereal sounds and a melody that dwells in the meditative realm, ’The Lighthouse’ by Linda Caitlin Smith provides a beautiful opening to the concert. With isolated voices that evoke a sense of split perspectives and the descriptive text of the sea and sky, the piece is evidently based on Virginia Woolf’s ’To the Lighthouse’. The essence of the novel echoes throughout the work, especially through the stream-of-consciousness-like quality of the voices and harmonies. EXAUDI mingles effortlessly with the rhythmic repercussions of the GBSR duo, as piano and vibraphone sonifies the picture painted by the text.
This relationship between piano and vibraphone is maintained in the second work, ’dreams as vivid in my eyes as orchids’ by Cassie Kinoshi, where the duo takes centre stage. Kinoshi works with a soundscape of resonance, exploring the evolving texture of unison doublings between piano and vibraphone that comes to an abrupt halt as if awakening from a dream that is at once both entrancing and threatening, thus bestowing a vivid evocation of the Rainer Maria Rilke poem of the same name that inspired the piece.
’Paroles Gelées’ by Joe Bates follows the previous pieces with inspiration drawn from yet another literary work, this time ‘Gargantua and Pantagruel’ by Francois Rabelais. Like the Renaissance novel, Joe Bates’s music is experimental, genre-bending and niche. Through live mixing and manipulation of the voices on stage, Bates creates disharmonies and an otherworldly soundscape that echoes in the hall, resulting in a piece completely unique and new. As EXAUDI delivers the text taken from the novel – describing how frozen, coloured words fall from the sky, melt and take shape, yet still are incomprehensible – I need only shut my eyes to hear these words shower down in the hall upon us.
Lastly, the headlining artist’s piece titled ‘money & yes’ rings out. Tay has created a piece unyielding to conventions; bold and chaotic in nature, rendering the nautical introduction to the concert almost a lullaby in comparison. This work bears the traces of an artist dissatisfied with the rigidity of classical music, ready to utilise the malleable nature of experimental contemporary music. It is a vivid, almost Lynchian story painted through the text, which centres around the life of the late entrepreneur and billionaire Tony Hsieh. In the composer’s own words, the text “forms a surreal kaleidoscope of images told through a first-person narrative as this fictionalised Hsieh approaches Nirvana”. The kaleidoscopic image is skilfully portrayed in the music as well, with erratic percussive accents, fragmented sampled sounds, and even screams punctuating the gradually evolving backdrop of microtonal shifts and ever-changing tempo.
At the risk of being too inaccessible for general audiences not familiar with modern classical music, Tay nevertheless showcases his musical beliefs with conviction. At times disorienting and overwhelming, there is always plenty for even an inexperienced ear to latch on to in this array of talent.
Wigmore Hall Voices of Today returns on Saturday 3rd of May with Ensemble intercontemporain. £5 tickets are available for under 35s.