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Nothing breaking the losing

Concert

Wien Modern presents NOTHING BREAKNIG THE LOSING (2016) with Ensemble Phace's Roland Schueler and Juliana Hodkinson performing on 25th November at Wiener Konzerthaus.

This piece was the first in an ongoing series in which the audience is assigned a collective responsibility for realising the work. The viola at the centre of NOTHING BREAKING THE LOSING has threads attached, which the musician pulls on, creating vibration and returning sound to the instrument. Some audience members hold threads strung across the performance area with .small dangling objects that float above a small collection of porcelain and glassware assembled on the floor. A text is recited; it is a plea to connect tiny human actions with larger social and complex interpersonal contexts that are rooted in gender, race, national sentiments, class and family relationships.
So far, the series contains a number of versions – Nothing Breaking the Losing (2016), Nothing Breaking/Occasion (2018), Nothing Breaking/Necessary Places (2022), Nothing Breaking/No Care (2022), Nothing Breaking / Rolling Silence (2024) - all of which work with these same social mechanics, with differences in instrumentation, degree of amplification, audience interaction, and installation of threads and objects.

NOTHING BREAKING THE LOSING is published by Edition S. The score can be viewed here

Photo: Ina Ciumakova

More info on the concert at Wien Modern here
November 17th

Here's your milk

New work

On Wednesday 11th Nov, Umo Duo gives the first performance of HERE'S YOUR MILK (2024) at raum236, Zürich.

HERE'S YOUR MILK continues a series – following JOUNCE (2016), THRESH (2018) and BEAT (2020) - that explores tapping, hitting and shaking sounds across various strings, dowels, materials, bows and instruments. It also looks back to RHODA'S SONG and HARRIET'S SONG (2001), which in turn are inspired by Jane Bowles’ puppet play A Quarreling Pair, from 1945.

The thematics of a sister relationship from Jane Bowles’ play resurfaced in my response to the Öhman sisters’ commission. Where, in HARRIET's SONG, I took a more gentle and sentimental angle on sisterhood, I chose in HERE'S YOUR MILK, to go with the strength. The players sit back to back - the percussionist (Erika) with a drum kit, and the cellist (Karolina) playing with two bows. They each have a hi-hat, kick drum and triangles in common, and their metrics and rhythms are locked into one another. Sharing close quarters is not only a recipe for spatial claustrophobia, but also an opportunity for intensely meaningful contact? The unconventional yet completely ordinary rigidity of Jane Bowles’ take on sisterhood is, in this case, a strong ground for tight musical coordination and sonic mirroring.

HERE'S YOUR MILK was commissioned by Karolina and Erika Öhman – Ume Duo – with the kind support of KodaKultur and the Danish Arts Council, Statens Kunstfond
November 11th

On the line

New work

As part of singuhr's festival Extended spaces - Resonant Bodies: Alvin Lucier, the new large-scale participatory work On the line (2024) is performed at Radialsystem, Berlin, on 21st Sept 2024 by Ensemble KNM.

ON THE LINE connects musicians and listeners at a series of junctures, in temporary formations in which instrument, action, line, word and listening hold potential for negotiation.
The audience is involved in a relational sense of ensemble, where there is perhaps some value in keeping the tension, or even drawing it out – through holding, sustaining, talking, playing, taking part and, not least, listening. A central moment in the work is a modified reenactment of Lucier’s Love Songs – a piece that Ensemble KNM worked on directly with Lucier in Berlin. The original Lucier piece’s basic grammar of transfering resonance from one string instrument to another, connected through space by a long metal wire – is here evolved into a multi-player situation. The reenactment is embedded within two contrasting relational textures that both require the participation of some of the audience in order to establish themselves.

The composition of ON THE LINE is supported by Statens Kunstfond and KodaKultur.

More info on the festival and concert
September 17th

Thresh for kids parcours

On Sunday 15th Sept, Dutch ensemble Nemø repeats their kids' parcours, where 6-9 year olds can experience THRESH (2018) alongside works by Elena Rykova, Carola Bauckholt, Eugene Ughetti and Rolf Wallin. THRESH was originally commissioned for Speak Percussion by Darmstädter Ferienkurse, and is a trio for horizontal strings, dowel and fluorescent light.

The event is part of November Music's pre-programme and takes place at Theater aan de Parade, Hertogenbosch

Concert info
September 14th

کاربر ناشناس

Concert

On Saturday 14th Sept, Ensemble KNM premieres a new work by Juliana Hodkinson and film duo Realillusion - Atefeh Kheirabadi and Mehrad Sepahnia - at Berlin's Radialsystem, as part of their invitation to several composes and sound artists to respond to the legacy of Nina Simone's song 'Four Women'.

The collaborative work کاربر ناشناس (in Farsi, ‘unknown user’) - refers to the nationwide protests that broke out in Iran in 2022. The work conveys the protests and their consequences, documented and shared with various degrees of anonymity in social networks by users who often themselves stood at considerable risk by recording and sharing footage. Those unknown users' short videos are collated, in this work, around four thematic perspectives of some of the women who have witnessed, driven and participated in the protests.

کاربر ناشناس is commissioned and premiered by Ensemble KNM Berlin and is written for bass flute, contrabass clarinet, cello and film with soundtrack.

The other composers responding to Simone's 'Four Women' in the same concert are Lin Fang-Yi, Cao Thanh Lan and Ana María Rodríguez.

More info about the concert

September 11th

Symfonien på Skamlingsbank

Concert

Based on conversations with 300 local residents from Vejle, Kolding and Haderslev, ensemble Lydenskab, writer Ursula Andkjær Olsen and composer Juliana Hodkinson have put together an outdoor performance that will stage on Saturday 22nd June at Skamlingsbank - site of Danish national political speeches.

In SYMFONIEN PÅ SKAMLINGSBANK the citizens speak back to the politicians - about nature, healthcare, waste disposal and housing projects. The performance is framed by an introductory 2km walk through the landscape, and finishes with communal dining.

More info and booking here (walk and concert are free, dinner has a charge)
June 18th

Nothing breaking / rolling silence

New work

Next month, ensemble megaphon gives the first performance of
NOTHING BREAKING / ROLLING SILENCE (2024) as part of their new project
'rolling silence - a concert for everyone ... who needs water'
including also works by Nina Dragičević, Georg Friedrich Händel, DJ pacifique
Eliane Radigue, Kirsten Reese, Georg Phillip Teleman and Manos Tsangaris.

Performances Sunday 2nd and Sat 8th June at 7:30pm, Heiligkreuzkirche Hannover - pay what you can
More info here
May 9th

Nothing breaking / no care

Concert

New York based avant garde musicians perform NOTHING BREAKING / NO CARE (2022), alongside works by MV Carbon, Bára Gísladóttir, Jexper Holmen, Mads Emil Dreyer
and Ylva Lund Bergner - on 12th June at Brooklyn's experimental music venue Roulette. Innovative compositional approaches and extended techniques converge in an event that incorporates spatial elements, audience engagement, and collaborative interpretation.

Organized by MV Carbon and Lars Lundehave. Sponsored by Nordic Culture Fund and presented by Roulette.
Performers: Laura Cocks, Zach Layton, Brian Chase, Samantha Sea Sea and MV Carbon

A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing.
May 6th

What methods do

On 9th April, Juliana Hodkinson presents at the international symposium 'What methods do' on the role of artistic research methods in the articulation of art and society, and how music, sound and performance unfold as part of a social context.

The symposium takes place at the Textile Museum in Tilburg the Netherlands on 9 April, starting time 13.00, and is organized by Leiden University’s Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) and the Platform for Arts Research in Collaboration, in coordination with Fontys Tilburg and SAR.
March 3rd

HAUCH at USC Fisher Museum

Concert

As part of its SCENE SHIFT exhibition, running Feb 2nd-Apr 6th 2024, LA's Fisher Museum is showing HAUCH (2020), a film made by Marsha Ginsberg, Juliana Hodkinson and Katharina Schmitt and originally commissioned by Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin.

Info about the exhibition here

Watch the film of HAUCH here
February 9th