Frances Lynch and Altin Volaj

This seminar focussed on new vocal techniques being developed by Altin Volaj with the singer Frances Lynch, directed towards Altin's opera Ion.

The work started during Altin's D.M.A programme in Maryland in 2005, and was semi-staged in 2008.
Although called Ion after the play by Euripides, the female character of Cruesa is strongly featured.
The piece has the typical Greek symmetrical choruses of 3 male and 3 females.
The scoring is for saxophone and 2 percussionists.
In the tutti of scene 4, the crowds are heard chanting in quasi aleatoric layers over atonal soundscapes.
Altin commented that it is hard to find a notation for all the different elements - dance, singing, movements, extended dramatic forms, and part of his enquiry at Sussex is directed towards refining this question and answering it. Collaborative work (with Frances Lynch) is extremely helpful towards these ends.
Frances Lynch then performed a segment of the work, in which Cruesa speaks with an intensely personal interior monologue about her fate.
This was dramatised in our seminar in an impressive live performance. Frances's voice at first appeared completely mediated through the microphone and reverb technique that she had set up with just the help of resonances from the grand piano. The audience only gradually realised that she was in fact singing live. This made quite an impression.
Altin then went on to discuss his interest in a wide pallette of vocal sounds:
1. Free speech with no accents
2. Rhythmic speech
3. Spoken voices with a melodic line (sprechstimme)
4. Sung speech
5. Inprecise singing
6. Closed mouth singing
7. Traditional song

Frances Lynch commented that the way she understood or interpreted the role of Creusa was as a person living intensely in her head, and in real exchange (from the neurotically internalised state to the everyday state of controlled communication).

Frances was asked about her career. She commented that she likes working with living composers, and does not enjoy the museum atmosphere of most opera houses, although she did train as a classical opera singer. To this Altin added that he appreciated the depth of knowledge of Frances - her knowledge and understanding of contemporary modes of performance being a base-line starting point, from which things could immediately develop. He said these three days of collaboration had been a very good experience, and he recalled that Berio primarily wrote for individual musicians he knew, not for generic performers.

A comment was made on the use of electronics in this 'mock up' version for today's seminar. The comment was that the electronics were actually quite interesting in their alienating affect, and perhaps they should be retained. Instruments might make the expression too 'cosy'.

A further question was posed on notation: how do you balance between the 'open' and the 'specified'. What room do you leave for interpretation? What is the role and nature of notation? [Is it prescriptive or does it document collaborative process in some contexts or senses?]

Frances responded that the negotiation process is subtle, and it is two-way. The notation by itself is not sufficient for a meaningful performance. Altin referred to various well known ensembles who specifically discourage composers from over-notating their compositions.