Oslo Sinfonietta | Andreas Borregaard X Jennifer Walshe: PERSONHOOD

Folketeatret

9th June 20.00

Programme

Jennifer Walshe
Personhood
Oslo Sinfonietta
Andreas Borregaard, Performer
Christian Eggen, Conductor

What does it mean to be a person at a time where our every moment is surveilled and monetized by the devices, we have extended our consciousness into? This is just one of the many questions posed by PERSONHOOD, a work by Irish composer Jennifer Walshe commissioned by Oslo Sinfonietta. In an exploration of the limitations of human agency, the accordionist Andreas Borregaard is surrounded by the Sinfonietta and subjected to a range of tests and procedures. Attempting to play his accordion, he finds himself performing obscure choreographies, watching films laden with subliminal messages, and drinking smoothies in strange colors. Are we in a laboratory? A luxury spa? Or are we simply at home?

The commission was initiated by Borregaard and sparked by a previous collaboration with Walshe. It is related to his current artistic PhD project at the Norwegian Music Academy (NMH), “Just Do It!?”, which studies the musician’s use of bodily performance. The project responds to a recent current within art music where the performer’s body is put forward as an essential element of the music. Rather than simply operating instruments, the musician’s body is brought into play in diverse and, until now, unheard ways through movements, dance, touch, recitation, singing, shouting, and screaming. For a performing musician rooted in traditional classical or contemporary music, such a bodily practice is a completely new field. In this way, PERSONHOOD is a sort of double exploration: At once part of an institutionalized art research at NMH and in itself an artistic laboratory where the ensemble subjects the soloist to a series of thought-provoking experiments.

Venue

Folketeatret

Nørregade 39 1165 København

> See Map

Artists

Oslo Sinfonietta

Norway’s oldest running contemporary ensemble. Established by the Norwegian composer Asbjørn Schaathun in 1986, the ensemble is under the leadership of Christian Eggen, who is artistic director and chief conductor.

Christian Eggen (1957)

Norwegian conductor, composer, pianist, and artistic director of Oslo Sinfonietta. His work ranges from contemporary music through multi-genre projects, installations, television, and radio dramas to film, theatre, jazz, opera, and classical music.

Aedín Cosgrove (1966)

Irish set- and lighting designer as well as co-artistic director of Pan Pan Theatre in Dublin. Cosgrove works as a freelance designer in all areas of professional theatre production and in Opera and Dance.

Andreas Borregaard (1981)

Danish accordionist. As both soloist and chamber musician, he communicates the accordion’s broad palette of expressions to a wide audience. He collaborates with composers from all over Europe and is actively influencing the development of his instrument’s use and repertoire.

Jennifer Walshe (1974)

Irish composer and professor of Experimental Performance at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Stuttgart. In addition to her activities as a composer, she frequently performs as a vocalist, specializing in extended techniques.