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No Gravity

Spectro Duo presents the show “No Gravity” together with Sophia Körber.

Ómar Sverrisson, Ghazaleh Ghazanfari

Programme

The Son of Fire was Ash* (2024), composed theatre (in Polish with English subtitles)

  • Martyna Kosecka (concept, music, video, Polish translation of the text, direction)
  • Ehsan Saboohi (playwright)
  • Spectro Duo (performance)
  • Aurora Maria Pambianchi Øvrelid (technical assistance)

Intermission

Vīrya (2023–2024), radio poem

  • Martyna Kosecka (composer, reciter)
  • Hengameh Mofid (reciter)

The poem "Window" is taken from Another Birth and Other Poems, by Forugh Farrokhzad, translated by Hasan Javadi and Susan Sallée, © 2010 Mage Publishers (mage.com).

Lūmen (2023–2024), mini-opera, monodrama for soprano and multimedia

  • Martyna Kosecka (music, concept, electronics, direction)
  • Sophia Körber (soprano, performance)
  • Bálint Laczkó (MaxMSP video patch)
  • Idin Samimi Mofakham (technical assistance)

Based on fragments from "White Torture: Interviews with Iranian Women Prisoners" by Narges Mohammadi

Contributors

  • Anders Svinndal (sound)
  • Marius Schei Johansen (lights)
  • Frode Larsen (production, NMH)

The concert is supported by Norsk Komponistforening (Norwegian site) and Arne Nordheim Centre for Artistic Reseach (NordART). Video materials developed at Notam, Oslo.

About

"No Gravity" is a performance that combines different levels of investigation of words, thoughts, actions and emotions while confronted with physical and mental imprisonment. It revolves around issues closely related to Iranian society and shows the universal truths of the transcendental effect that oppression, restriction or deprivation of rights can have on people. No matter where, in which country, against which race or culture or in which era. Floating and present in no gravity of the eternal struggle. On this evening, the Polish composer and PhD fellow in artistic research at the Norwegian Academy of Music, Martyna Kosecka, presents three different musical formats and approaches to the themes of captivity, the search for freedom and the perspective on women's (human) rights. As part of her artistic research, she is developing a series of concepts for mini-operas in which she explores how the shortening of the dramaturgical action affects the content of the form, addressing a theme close to her heart - the role and treatment of women in contemporary society.

Sophia Körber

Internationally acclaimed soprano Sophia Körber is a versatile Opera, Oratorio and Concert singer. She has particularly established herself as a soloist in the fields of Contemporary Opera and Baroque music. In 2020 her “enchanting tones“ were praised by die Vorarlberger Nachrichten while embodying the role of Servilia in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito at Landestheater Bregenz. Sophia performed the solo role in Stockhausen‘s SIRIUS in Kürten in 2022. Other highlights this year included appearances as a soloist at the VoxLAB Festival in Norway, the Kronberg Academy and with the Klangforum Wien at the Tongyeong Concert Hall in South Korea. In the current season (2022/23) she will reappear as Gerda in Die Schneekönigin at Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Sophia Körber is a prize winner of the Bundeswettbewerb Gesang in Berlin and a winner in the category of Contemporary Music at the international competition Giovanni Musicisti Treviso. Sophia has been significantly supported as a scholarship holder of the Walter und Charlotte-Hamel-Stiftung, Live Music Now Hannover and the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. In 2019 she was a finalist at the Richard-Strauss-Gesangswettbewerb in Munich, and in 2021 and 2022 a finalist in Rhonefestival‘s #LIEDINNOVATION competition.

Sprectro Duo

Spectro Duo's musical origins lie in the world of contemporary music. But their practise is rooted in improvisation and performance art. Two composer-performers form a contemporary music band whose expression of the performative defies categorisation. Spectro Duo began its work in 2013 and consists of two composers and performers, Martyna Kosecka (voice, keys, sound objects, electronics, video) and Idin Samimi Mofakham (alto saxophone, electric guitar, sound objects, electronics). Their musical focus is on drones, noise, beating phenomena, glitches, field recording transformation, microtonality and non-western tuning systems.

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Published: Jun 14, 2024 — Last updated: Sep 17, 2024