Adam Swayne piano

 

Heloise Tunstall-Behrens (UK, 1985)
Picea 433 World Premiere (2020) 5’30”

 

Earlier this year, the Riot Ensemble launched Zeitgeist, a new series of commissions responding to the worldwide lockdown that hit the UK in March. In an attempt to keep music flowing and work for composers circulating, the group teamed up with the eponymous Zeitgeist, an online gallery that presents contemporary work through a digital lens. Through this project, they commissioned seven young composers across the globe, committing to performances of their work presented in Zeitgeist’s online space, and also via YouTube.

As the pandemic continues to roll on, bringing with it major complications for working musicians, hcmf// is proud to join forces with the Riot Ensemble to deliver a second wave of Zeitgeist Commissions. The six pieces, selected by the festival together with Riot, were written for solo performances by members of the group, and will receive their video premiere at hcmf// 2020. As ever, we’re proud to be working alongside the Riot Ensemble to find a practical way to give musicians a hint of reality by bringing about new paid opportunities, as well as unique showcases for their work.

Heloise Tunstall-Behrens has made sound art, played in indie bands and written experimental operas. She’s interested in the sounds of community, across all sorts of existences. Her new work Picea 433 pays respect to the Spruce tree, which is the source of pianos’ resonating soundboards. On one of her side quests as an anthropologist, Tunstall-Behrens studied these trees in their native Norway, looking at scientific analysis that pays attention to ‘age and growth patterns’, and the reasons that the wood makes for a good piano. The piece goes into forensic detail on the piano’s life source, thinking about what was given to animate it. As is typical of Tunstall-Behrens, Picea 433 is up close and personal with its ideas, taking natural recordings of the subject; it’s accompanied by ‘media drawn from a recording of Spruce roots, which is played through the piano strings’.

 

Co-commissioned by the Riot Ensemble and hcmf// in partnership with Zeitgeist Online Gallery