Still listening II (2017/2021)

for fl., eng. hn., perc., turntablist, banjo/singer, vn., va., vc.
for ensemble mosaik & Annesley Black
WP 7 August 2021, Berlin (Germany), Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg

Edition Juliane Klein Order No.: EJK1044

Score Preview (Publisher, pdf)

still listening II, comic by Annesly Black

drawings: Annesley Black, 2016

The Athabaskan Fiddling tradition is a part of many First Nations cultures in northern Canada, Nunavut and Alaska. It was brought to these regions around 1840, as Craig Mishler describes in his book “The Crooked Stovepipe: Athapaskan Fiddle Music and Square Dancing in Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada”, by traders in the Hudson Bay Company primarily of French Canadian and Scottish (notably Orkney Islands) descent. Eventually these Northern communities adopted fiddling techniques, with dance tunes traceable back to France and Great Britain and introduced their own variations, dances and songs.
In this piece, original material (medial recordings: historical field recordings from northern Canada, Nunavut and Alaska, faux field-recordings made by the composer in Frankfurt am Main and recordings of past versions of this piece) is confronted with an ensemble of classically trained European musicians.
The historical references to a tradition that is still thriving, begs the question expressed by Craig Mishler in my communication with him: why bring this music – bound to a specific place and culture – into a European concert hall? The closer I became to this material over the five years I was working on this piece, the more I trusted myself to deal with this question in a non-descriptive, purely musical manner. I sought to embody the cultural conflict, no longer satisfied with a depiction. Transcending a reflection of medial distancing, in the concertante interpretation, these conflicts physically manifest themselves in the ensemble and the music that they play.
This is not an attempt to represent these people, and does not wish to imitate or make a statement about their culture. It is a quest to remain open, explore cultural dissonances, and, as the Gwich’in say, Ch’oodhadhohch’eii — to listen.
-Annesley Black, Berlin 2021.
Kompositionsauftrag der Edition Juliane Klein/ Akademie der Künste, Berlin
gefördert durch die Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung