Evangelia Rigaki

Evangelia Rigaki is mostly a music theatre and opera composer. Since music theatre is inherently collaborative and involves working with people from different backgrounds and disciplines (and, sometimes, of different skill levels), the amount of creative control a composer has can vary significantly with each different project.

In Gesprekken Van de Ziel, Evangelia worked with the director Sjaron Minailo over two months. They worked with non-western musical traditions and in this context had to decide whether to merely represent this, or to create new material in order to dramatise the relation between the spectator and the observed culture. They chose the latter solution.

In this piece there was a choir, an ud player and a solo singer. The piece was based on a song of Umm Kulthum (Egyptian singer, c. 1900 - 1975). The piece was based around the interplay between the choir and the soloist. The choir became more “hostile” (both in their use of physical gestures as well as through their musical material, which clashed rhythmically and harmonically with the soloist’s) the more the soloist sang newly-composed material. They were positioned among the audience, thereby using the performance space to enhance the effect of their interaction with the soloist. Their proximity to the audience meant that even their breathing could be audible to the audience and was therefore used and notated in their music.

The breathing of the soloist was also important (and was audible due to her microphone) and was therefore precisely notated: the more she sang newly-composed material, the more her breathing was notated to be at awkward intervals. Evangelia collaborated closely with the soloist (Esra Dalfidan) to determine her limits so that this would genuinely tax her, making her look and sound uncomfortable. This served to illustrate her discomfort at the hostility exhibited towards her by the choir. The presence of the composer during rehearsals was therefore necessary for the piece to have acquired its present form.


In Narcissus, Evangelia wrote for the percussionist Damien Harron on solo prepared marimba. The marimba was prepared, among other ways, with paper to mute the sound. For convenience, the score was notated on the paper. The percussionist would rip off the paper as the piece progressed, thereby enacting Narcissus’s literally parting the waters in order to embrace his reflection (both in terms of the visual gesture of tearing, as in the musical gesture of removing the paper which was muffling the marimba and giving it back its clear, watery sound), as in Ovid’s telling of the myth. By also tearing up the score (which was transcribed on the paper), however, the percussionist also destroys the framework of the allegory which casts him in the role of Narcissus.

In Tempt My Better Angel, Evangelia collaborated with choreographer Darren Ellis. In this piece, the music and the choreography were developed simultaneously, in an unusual model for collaboration in dance, where the music is usually written first. Evangelia further wanted the instrumentalists not to be stationary, but to move about the stage and perform physical gestures, thereby participating in the choreography.

Darren had wanted highly rhythmical and melodic music in order to provide audible cues for the dancers, whereas Evangelia wanted to use arhythmic and extended techniques. A middle ground was reached by deciding to use the physical actions of the instrumentalists to provide visual cues for the dancers, thereby eliminating the need for rhythmical, “danceable” music.

Little Instruments of Apprehension (again choreographed by Darren Ellis and on a libretto by W. N. Herbert), was scored for one baritone and one dancer/percussionist.

The fact that Darren was both dancer and instrumentalist (playing percussion on various props while dancing) meant that writing this piece was a highly collaborative process, as the music and choreography were completely interdependent.

The libretto was topical and concerned with the hysteria around swine flu. This was illustrated by the incomprehensibility of Darren’s vocal material (which was based around lists in various languages, which Bill Herbert called “swarms of words”) contrasted with the baritone’s conventional sung delivery style of material in English.

Unexpected serendipitous effects can arise from unusual meetings between artists and performers of different backgrounds, disciplines and levels of training, taking one out of one's comfort zone and making collaborative works more unique and exciting.

In questions, E.R. was asked, 'is the dream to be part of a collective; or are collaborations to an extent accidental?' Evangelia responded that collaborations are up to an extent accidental, as, for a young composer, any opportunity is welcome and the ability to collaborate with others might be regarded as an important skill. However, I aim to nurture long-term collaborations with people I trust artistically and enjoy working with, such as Bill Herbert, Sjaron Minailo and Darren Ellis.

E.R. was further asked, 'Is it meaningful to do the same piece with different people; in the sense that so much work is invested in specific circumstances and factors?' She responded that it is possible for the same piece to turn out completely different depending on whom you are collaborating with. In any case, I try to tailor each piece to the particular performers and the performance space, and I dont mind that this imbues my pieces with an ephemeral quality.