Michael Hope: How Not to Shout

Den Sorte Diamant

1/6 2023, 19:15

Søren Kierkegaards Plads 1
1221 København K

Free entrance

In the performance piece, How Not to Shout composer Michael Hope explores loudness: in a set of three movements specifically curated for The Royal Library – an environment with an inherent expectation of silence – loudness is examined in its physical, aesthetic, visual, emotional, and energetic, but, crucially, silent manifestations.

In the first movement, maeLstroM, Hope is a conductor leading an imaginary, silent orchestra: he prepares the ensemble and gives the musicians a series of dramatic upbeats before silent but chaotic stabs and gestures accumulate with greater and greater complexity until they reach a physical breaking point.

In the second movement, Classified, Hope finds an inherent musicality in something as dry as the mumbling of a live commentator: Classified is a whirlwind tour of the various personas that inhabit the performer's self-analytical and self-critical voice, constantly taking on different forms as they hysterically, yet almost inaudibly, comment on their own performance, accompanied by BBC football results from the 1990s.

NICE FACE, the last movement, is inspired by the study "Dimorphous Expressions of Positive Emotion: Displays of Both Care and Aggression in Response to Cute Stimuli". Whispering with a mixture of care and aggression, Hope monosyllabically assesses the merits of various cute animals displayed on a slide show, desperately attempting to express the overwhelming cuteness while still adhering to the library's demand for silence. How much noise can one make without sound? Quite a lot, it turns out.

Program

Michael Hope: How Not to Shout (premiere)

Duration 15 min. 

The piece is commisioned by KLANG and is supported by Dansk Komponistforening and KODA kultur

Biographies

Michael Hope