Julia Holter Instagram – in November, I’m excited (after years of delay due to Covid) to premiere a new live score for the classic Dreyer film “The Passion of Joan of Arc”, written for the Chorus of
@operanorth featuring special guests @sarahbellereid, @tashiwada and @coreyvogeln
2 UK shows (link in bio for tickets):
Nov 23 Huddersfield Music Festival @hcmfuk
Nov 25 London @barbicancentre
I always love to be at the Barbican, and I’ve heard nice things about Huddersfield Music Festival for years so excited to experience it finally 🐉🍄🐉
a little about the music:
In making music to accompany this incredible film, there is so much beauty and space given to the composer and yet I was hoping not to take advantage of that space too much; I wanted to keep the mystery. I was inspired by an essay by Anne Carson called “Variations on the Right to Remain Silent”, in which she explores the untranslatability of the sublime—how, throughout Joan’s trial, the judges are trying to forcibly extricate some kind of material from Joan to manipulate into their narrative, while Joan stays true to the inexplicability of her spiritual experience with vague statements
like, as Carson highlights, “The light comes in the name of the voice”.
The live score began centered on my voice through a contact mic on my throat, the
words rendered unintelligible, retaining the pitch yet tongue-less. But suddenly I had an entire opera chorus (Chorus of Opera North) to work with, so I had to figure out a way to bring out that
‘sublime unintelligibility’ with a group of operatic voices as well. Alongside some notable quotes
of Joan’s from the film to set to music, I also wanted to set and adapt a couple of medieval
chants relevant to Joan’s story and/or time (“Te Deum” and “Ave Maris Stella”), and so
throughout we hear these chants in various forms—sometimes only as very long stretched-out
and isolated syllables decapitated from their word context, and sometimes sung more
conventionally.
Looking forward to performing this thing which I don’t know how it will turn out but I’m pretty sure it will be wild and weird! Very grateful for Opera North Chorus for this opportunity 🪐🪐🪐 | Posted on 21/Oct/2022 14:03:57
