Press release: The premiere of The Barrier Orchestra – October 29 2015
Barriers are like magnets, barriers attract and store culture, ideas, perceptions, behaviour, prejudice. Barriers are resistance, borders, obstacles, protection. Barriers can be avoided, charged, broken down, destroyed and raised. Barriers can supply energy, ideas and solutions.
The premiere of
BARRIÄRORKESTERN/THE BARRIER ORCHESTRA
with the first performance of the experimental sound art performance
RESILIENCE, GROUND LAYER MODULES in two acts
Idea, composition and direction
ANN ROSÉN
text
HELENA BOBERG
FYLKINGEN, THURSDAY 29 OCTOBER 2015, 7.30 pm
Press preview: Open rehearsal Thursday 15 October 5-6 pm, Fylkingen, http://fylkingen.se
Orchestra after orchestra are closed down and Ann Rosén chooses to start a new one! The Barrier Orchestra includes some of Sweden’s foremost musicians and artists – selected for their skills and their desire to challenge, exploit and explore their own barriers to develop the music: Anna Lindal violin, Eva Lindal violin, Elsbeth Berg viola, Sara Sjödahl piano and accordion, Jörgen Pettersson saxophone, Matias Björnstad Karlsen saxophone, Ola Paulsson saxophone, Jakob Riis trombone, Girilal Baars voice/singing, Helena Boberg voice, Sten‐Olof Hellström synths and electronics and Ann Rosén.
For The Barrier Orchestra’s first performance Ann Rosén has composed RESILIENCE, GROUND LAYER MODULES in two acts with text by Helena Boberg. With strings and bows, winds and white noise, electronic instruments and textile resistance, in a meeting of artistic disciplines and traditions the concert is modulated into existence.
Ann Rosén was originally trained as a sculptor at Konstfack (University College of Arts, Crafts and Design) in Stockholm and has been active as a sound artist and composer since the 90s. In recent years she has received a great deal of attention for the project Syntjuntan and in 2013 their album was awarded the Manifest prize for the best experimental album. Her sound art involves expanding the palette of sounds with timbres using sensors to register changing tensions in cloth instruments to control computer generated sounds and processes. Glitches, sparks and clicks, white noise and electronic artefacts characterise Ann Rosén’s sound world, as do spatial soundscapes created using real-time synthesis. Many times there are visual elements of design, equipment and materials innovatively integrated into her performances.
In recent years the composing – usually in combination with self-made electronic musical instruments – has taken an increasingly large place in Ann’s oeuvre. In the work RESILIENCE and through the BARRIER ORCHESTRA, Ann’s long artistic activity is summarized in modular pieces for the custom-built instruments KNEECUFF and INTEOCH, voice and mixed instrumentation.
THE BARRIER ORCHESTRA and the piece RESILIENCE are part of Ann Rosén’s The Great Barrier Orchestra project, which aims to challenge our inner and outer barriers, the ones we carry inside ourselves and the ones we encounter in the world around us, deepen colabouration with the musicians, composing and developing new instruments, playing techniques, music and art. The Great Barrier Orchestra (http://storabarriarorkestern.se/).
With support by The Swedish Arts Grants Committeé and Längmanska Kulturfonden.
Thank you to Genelec.
Premiere: http://fylkingen.se/node/2115
Press image: http://storabarriarorkestern.se/?p=21812
Contact: Ann Rosén +46-708-109838, ar (at) annrosen.se