vocal singing for the opening

Vocal Metamorphosis
Construction Choir Collective

Construction Choir Collective (CCC) is a low-threshold, open and democratic collective creating artistic work. The choir and its members feel obliged to express solidarity with one another and towards society and therefore embrace the participation of inexperienced singers.

For a choir it is an inevitable condition to hear each other and to be heard – to be within calling distance to each other. In this sense, the collective has set itself the task of finding ways to make its stylistic diverse repertoire heard, even in times of required social distance, and thus to create a poetic-philosophical medium of connection through the joy of singing. The project “Vocal Metamorphosis” combines characteristically varying fragments with each other, creating a space of expression not only on an acoustic but also on a visual level, thus transforming the perspective on public spaces and making them different and newly perceptible.

The atmospheric interplay between distance and proximity, silence and exclamation, order and chaos refers to the fundamental right of a democratic society to raise its voice. This is articulated by the choir and the artistic moderation of Daniel Aschwanden, Pavel Naydenov and netzzeit in collaboration with – among others – the electro-acoustic composer Nava Hemyari.

https://www.netzzeit.at/soon/construction-choir-collective/

*Construction Choir Collective

In August 2019 the Construction Choir Collective was founded as a part of a city lab. The constantly growing choir consists of students from the University of Applied Arts Vienna and artists external to university, to overcome the limits set by an university bubble. Flexibility, solidarity and openness characterises the choir and its interdisciplinary art practices.

Daniel Aschwanden
Swiss, living and working in Vienna

performer, choreographer, curator

where art meets the social: performative interventions in urban contexts, hybrid formats of interventions in public spaces in Europe, Asia, Africa, stressing the angle of cultural exchange and communication using a variety of art practices, movement/dance -based formats reaching from public spaces to installations and performances in blackboxes and white cubes, relating social to art agendas.

netzzeit
netzzeit is a collective for developing contemporary music theatre in its broadest sense. Collaborating with (inter-)national art initiatives, it sets up interdisciplinary projects intersecting the arts, science and politics. Since 2000 netzzeit has been increasingly successful in developing its projects in collaboration with (inter) national partners. Since 2004 netzzeit bundled most of its activities into a bi-annual festival for new music theatre entitled “Out of Control”.

Nava Hemyari
Nava Hemyari is a composer born in Tehran (1993). She has studied electroacoustic composition with Karlheinz Essl at the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She works a lot with sound patterns and textures. Due to her interest on experimenting with her voice she has written numerous pieces for voice.

Pavel Naydenov
Pavel Naydenov is a choir conductor and contemporary artist. As a student of Social Design – Arts as Urban Innovation at the Social Design Department of the University of Applied Arts Vienna his artistic approach focuses on the intensive dynamics in cities and its social environments. Pavel is a core member of the CCC and – as the conductor – plays an important role in the project “Vocal Metamorphosis”.

Vocal Metamorphosis
song description

1) Rosas Pandan

2) Lux Aurumque

3) Weep, O mine Eyes

4) Fair Phyllis

5) Eduti iii – Nava Hemyari

6) Bre Petrunko

1 Rosas Pandan

Composer: Minggoy Lopez

Arranged by: George Hernandez

The song Rosas Pandan is a Philippine classic. It is about a pretty woman, Rosas Pandan. Every year she comes down from the mountain to celebrate a town festival with the community. She turns around the heads of the menfolk with the songs and dances she brings. This Visayan folk song has been performed by numerous choirs all over the world.

2 Lux Aurumque

Composer: Eric Whitacre

Translated Lux Aurumque means “Light and Gold”, sometimes “Light of Gold”. The choral composition by Eric Whitacre is based on a Latin poem by Edward Esch. In 1999 Whitacre tried hard to transfer the poem into a beautiful singable and sonical choral composition for A cappella and a few years later also for wind ensembles and men’s choir.

3 Weep, O Mine Eyes

Composer: John Bennet

Weep, O Mine Eyes is a very famous madrigal with a polyphonic texture by John Bennet. The use of accidentals in the madrigal can be interpreted as a way used to express grief, weeping, sighs and sorrow. It is written for four vocal parts and was first published in his first collection, Madrigalls to Fovre Voyces, in 1599.

4 Fair Phyllis

Composer: John Farmer

Fair Phyllis is an English madrigal by John Farmer published in 1599. The song is about a fellow that wanders through the hills to look for his beloved, a shepherdess. In the polyphony he finds her herding her sheep and “then they fell a-kissing”. The madrigal contains four voices and uses occasional imitation. It also alternates between triple and duple beat subdivisions of the beat in different parts of the work.

5 Etudi iii

Composer: Nava Hemyari