Rituals (2022)

my music emerges as a stream of consciousness that flows, is felt, sensed, shaped and then crafted, it does not emerge from a verbal place — but when a piece is completed I often spend quite a bit of time finding ways to articulate some of the important elements of the musical ideas or thoughts that play certain key roles in the origin of the piece — with Rituals however the accompanying text needed to be left impressionistic and unfiltered

as with my music generally, the thoughts and ideas associated with the origin or development of a piece is not something I am trying to describe through the music – it is a way to intuitively approach and work with the core energy, structure, atmosphere and material of the piece

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repetition in atmosphere — going through motions, the same motions, but it is never the same — with every repeating breath is a new feeling, new vision, new life, new being, same life — the same but always different — various perspectives of ritualistic feelings, sensations, explorations, from the hymn like Ascension to obsessive percussive materials… from parts that move like a rigorous engine to others of flowing atmospheric ether — but all have in common the ritualistic approach to the material — rituals in lyricism — rituals in hope — rituals in repetition — rituals in song — rituals in material — rituals in prayer — rituals in obsession — rituals in life — rituals in being — rituals in harmonies — bending rituals — rituals in difference — ritual as an escape — ritual as peace — ritual as continuation — ritual as burden — ritual as hope — ritual as obsession — ritual as being — ritual in harmony — each part is its own ritual and together the eleven parts form one ritual

Programme note © 2023 Anna Thorvaldsdottir