IRIS SZEGHY (SLOVAKIA)
STORY
for soprano and tape (1995)
31.08
Majorstuen Kirke 19:00
Anna Molnár - voice
Martyna Kosecka – electronics
Composer's note:
"Story" for voice and tape I wrote in 1995, in 2014 I made its revision. The tape part was realized in the Experimental Studio of Slovak Radio in Bratislava and in the STEIM Studio in Amsterdam. The piece is my look at the relationship »nature – civilization«. The story of this relationship is captured by development of sounds on the tape and in the solo vocal line. On the tape at the beginning pure nature sounds gradually transit from first shy onto more and more aggressive sounds of civilization in order to end in the »sound of war« - of shooting, sirens, and air-fighters. Against it, represented by a human voice, there is a human being as an actor and victim of his/her own development. The vocal line follows a similar arch as sounds on the tape do: from shy beginnings symbolized by breathing in and out, through whisper, talk and singing, until horror screams. At the very end when the war machinery absorbs every other sound including a human voice, silence occurs. Only after some time a lonely human breathing – a metaphor for hope I try to keep - can be heard.
Iris Szeghy
Meet The Artists
Iris Szeghy was born into a Hungarian family in Prešov (Czechoslovakia, now Slovakia). She studied composition at the Music Academy in Bratislava making her doctoral degree of composition there, too. Szeghy went through numerous composition residencies in Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland, England USA etc, since 2001 she lives as a freelance composer in Zurich, Switzerland. She writes orchestral, chamber and vocal music, her pieces are performed by distinguished performers and ensembles worldwide.
Martyna Kosecka is a Polish composer, conductor, performer, and researcher in new music, based in Norway since 2019. She studied composition and orchestral conducting in the Music Academies in Kraków and Katowice, in Poland. Through her music, she experiments with alternative tunings, microtonality, and electroacoustic processing of sounds. Kosecka, with engagement and curiosity, plays with the perception of time and focuses on extracting timbral qualities of each individual sound through a microperspective approach.
Vocal artist, mezzo-soprano Anna Molnár is „a versatile artist with a stirring voice, who likes pushing boundaries and participating in experimental performances”. /Dániel Mona/ Besides Baroque music and lied, Anna regularly performs significant and challenging 20th Century repertoire (Ligeti, Schönberg, Webern, Boulez, Berio) and music by living composers, among them many premieres written exclusively for her. As a soloist she has appeared with the Hungarian Radio Symphony, the Orfeo Orchestra, and the UMZE Ensemble among others, and since 2018 she is returning regularly to the Hungarian State Opera. She is a regular guest at festivals like CAFe Budapest Contemporary Art Festival, Transparent Sound New Music Festival, CentriFUGA, The Day of Listening, Kamara.hu chamber music festival, Budapest Spring Festival, Liszt Fest, The Night of Music of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Armel Opera Festival, and the Haydneum Festival of Sacred Music. Since 2017 Anna is a permanent guest soloist at the conductor and composer masterclasses of the Peter Eötvös Foundation, lead by Péter Eötvös and Gregory Vajda. She participated in three significant new music masterclasses: the Darmstadt Summer Course — professor: Donatienne Michel-Dansac, the Summer Academy of Ensemble Linea in Strasbourg — professor: Françoise Kubler, and the Impuls in Graz — professors: Agata Zubel and Andreas Fischer. Anna was awarded the Annie Fischer Scholarship (2016, 2017, 2018) and the art scholarship of Bank of China in 2017.