Cries in a project 50/50
Justina Repeckaite’s composition Cries (2023) was performed during the French tour of the project 50/50 by the Sequenza 9.3 vocal ensemble (cond. Catherine Simonpietri) and a harpist Sandrine Chatron (Trio Polycordes) alongside pieces by Carol Robinson (1956), Claude Barthelemy (1956) and Fabien Cali (1983).
50/50 tour dates in 2023:
7th of March Auditorium de Gennevilliers (92)
9th of March L’Arc – Scène Nationale du Creusot (71)
14th of March La Chapelle Corneille / programmation de l’Etincelle – Rouen (76)
16th of March La Collégiale d’Angers (49) / Festival Les Résonances
24th of March Auditorium d’Eybens (38) / Festival Détours de Babel
14th of April Théâtre de La Barcarolle de Saint-Omer (62)
50/50 project is carried by the Ensemble SEQUENZA 9.3 and the Trio Polycordes, combining together lyrical voices and plucked strings instruments.
Program note of Cries (2023) for 8 voices and prepared harp
Making allusion to the spirit of Woodstock festival, and peace protests that defined the generation, composition Cries uses isolated words associated with a protest and struggle: shout, cries, cri & non (French), and at the very end of the piece, the title of Jimmy Hendrix’s posthumous album The cry of Love. The filtering of sounds with hands that cover mouths symbolizes censorship & silencing. The struggle is expressed with extreme registers and indefinable fragments of words. Isolated vowels also have a timbral function. The harp is heavily prepared with metal objects saturating its sound: jingles, paper clips, tuning fork. An aluminum foil weaved between its metallic strings is amplified via contact microphones distorting the sound as in practice with an electric guitar. The harmonic structure uses a chord of 7 thirds which are neither major nor minor thanks to a quarter-tone intonation. Their inversions resemble the harmonic spectrum shape not only by the intervals but also by the association of the frequency with the duration of the notes. However, continuous glissandi movements hide this harmonic field with its dramatic tension & expression.
Justina Repeckaite
Composers Justina Repečkaitė, Fabien Cali, Claude Barthelemy and Carol Robinson.
