Home (Münstergasse 37) by Jonas Kocher, Musikfestival Bern 2018
Site specific work for four musicians and two actors in a flat. An intimate experience for the audience about perception, expectations, listening and observation. The performance has been realised 3 times during the nights of September 6 and 7 2018 in a flat in the old town of Bern.
Work commissioned by Aabat Ensemble and premiered during Musikfestival Bern 2018.
Duration about 60'.
With Marie Delprat, Katelyn Rose King, Noémie Brun, Shuyue Miao Zhao (Aabat Ensemble), Christoph Utzinger (electronics), Olivier Famin (light, technic), Lara Marian, Nico Herzig, Antonio Ramon Luque (actors), Jonas Kocher (concept, staging and light/stage).
Such a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful performance yesterday night of Ensemble Aabat and the composition of Jonas Kocher. Sincere work and refined like a piece of jewellery. Refreshing! —Pascal V., musician
_messages (2018-2020)
_messages is a collaborative work from StentonDotPress (Richard Stenton) and Katelyn King that draws parallels between the two meanings of the word medium–the medium as a human connector to the afterlife, taken from the Spiritualist Movement in the US and UK beginning in the 1840’s–and the medium as a communicative tool we use to relay content. Both forms contain messages.
Originally conceived during the 2018 Darmstadt International Summer Courses as a part of the Artistic Research seminar, _messages had the format of a guided new music theater installation for one person at a time. The artistic interest during the seminar was to use technological media to enhance a theatrical setting of a séance, to re-create the feeling of a present unknown.
Recording of the concert installation version of _messages from March 10, 2020 at Fracanaüm/Le Bourg https://soundcloud.com/user-427216651-604651913/messages-by-katelyn-king-and-richard-stenton
https://soundcloud.com/richardstenton/messages-sound-sample
Hans Wüthrich’s das Glashaus
The product of a year-long collaboration with young composers and performers from the Hochschule der Künste Bern, under the direction of Pierre Sublet, Das Glashaus was a work that attracted the attention of the swiss (and international) new music and new music theater scenes, as the work is rarely if ever performed since it’s beginning inception with composer Hans Wüthrich.
The new and moderninzed interpretation involved innovative costumes, staging and set design–as well as a fresh performative perspective.
The work was performed multiple times at the Hochschule der Künste Bern in 2017 and 2018, and was on tour to the 2017 Acht Brücken new music festival in Cologne, the 2018 Usine Sonore Festival in Switzerland, and had a short residency in 2018 at the La Fonderie theater in France.
Public Critique during the Acht Brücken Festival in Cologne (unofficially translated from the original article in german):
The intense performance of The Glashaus by Swiss composer Hans Wüthrich was the culmination and highlight of the festival theme. The theatrical work, produced in 1974/1975 in the politically sensitized aftermath of the german student movement, do not show language as the medium of a "dominion-free discourse" (Habermas) but, on the contrary, as an offensive or perfidious power instrument and weapon.
Seven actors - a soprano, and six speakers - have only six seats on the stage of the Cologne theater in Bauturm, from a sumptuous armchair on the highest pedestal to a small stool at the bottom. The weakest member desperately begins the piece and distribution struggles are shown to be pre-programmed. With pure phonetic sound, yet intonationally clear message, the protagonists enter into dialogue bickering, crying, pleading, questioning, defying, courting, and commanding.
The Glashaus appears as an aviary of exotic chattering birds, who negotiate their positions according to their own ranking and pitch order. In addition, affective sound, mimic, gesture, and body language including erotic signals are utilized within the dynamic relations between performers. Under the direction of Pierre Sublet, the students of the widely unique Théatre Musical program at the Bern University of Fine Arts acted as models for the singular, pairing, and multiple-party coalitions formed in the various speaking situations. All looks, sounds and gestures were set precisely. In the end, the personnel finally changed their initial ranking.
But the new constellation affirmed only the hierarchical relations of power and impotence instead of revolutionizing them: in place of a man, a woman takes the throne. Nevertheless rule remained, and oppression remained oppression and language the vademecum of the (a) social structure.
“Viel Mache, wenig zur Sache” by Rainer Nonnenmann
https://texte.musiktexte.de/mt-154/153/die-siebte-ausgabe-des-kolner-festivals-acht-brucken
Makrokosmos (2018)
Almost the entirety of the vast macrocosm remains beyond our reach. The universe, planet earth, complex societies, ourselves–are all macrocosms made by smaller structures and systems, but are essentially large-scale reproductions of its smaller structures.
How can we analyze our microcosmic systems, to better realize our place in the larger macrocosm? What place do we individuals have in the manipulation of our own microcosmic roles?
Ensemble Aabat’s Makrokosmos is the second concert in a two-part series to relate smaller musical structures and scenes, to a larger, collective, self-reflective world.
The first concert, Mikrokosmos, as a part of Pakt’s “Flash Back, Flash Forward” musical evening in December 2017, took place outdoors and sought out the exploration of four small musical worlds. Makrokosmos will combine four performers in six separate musical and visual worlds into one shared space, in order to find a common order as one collective whole. The evening will be made up of creations, premiers, and concepts that involve many differing mediums including but not limited to: video projection, object theater, sculpture performance, new music, and vocal expression.
Program:
Tafel 1 (1989) von Manos Tsangaris (25’)
History of My Instrument (2011) von Simon Steen-Andersen (8’)
Balloon Installation (2017/18) von Shuyue Miao Zhao, Marie Delprat, und Katelyn Rose King (7’)
oh n(o)w…roar all over and over again (2012/17) von Katharina Rosenberger (4’)
Ferocious Purposes (2010) von Blaise Ubaldini (1979) (10’)
Transitional Concept (2018) von Shuyue Miao Zhao (10’)
I search our foundations tangled in roots (2017) von Carolyn Chen und Justin Rabideau (18’)
Sound Design: Christoph Utzinger
Light Design: Olivier Famin
Video: Susie Sie
Curators: Marie Delprat, Katelyn Rose King
Performers:
Shuyue Miao Zhao
Mathilde Bernard
Marie Delprat
Katelyn Rose King
Tafel 1 by Manos Tsangaris
In Ensemble Aabat’s very first official project–Marie Delprat, Katelyn King and guest ‘Fadenorgel’ performer Yesid Fonseca–put together Manos Tsangaris’ 30 minute work Tafel 1 (1989) under the special direction of Matthias Rebstock.
The work was first performed in 2016 during a theatrical music presentation of masterclasses by Matthias Rebstock at the Hochschule der Künste Bern, and was later taken to the Trente / Trente 2017 Festival in France for short theatre works.