Week 0: Brainstorming Meet-up

Date: 14th March 2025 (Friday)

Time: 12:00nn

Venue: Pats Upper Foyer

Being very confident that Genie and I will make the dream work from the very first week of the semester (it was 2nd Feb that we grouped), we finally have our first meeting to talk about each others’ thoughts. Genie and I are both vocalist but very different at the time. Genie is fond of playing with electronics and extended singing techniques. Most of her performance is also a form of composition as well and each of them are unique and improvisatory. On the other hand, I am an opera zealot who performs and research a lot of operatic music and a composer who wrote everything on scores. I always think that we are both doing very cool and complex projects ourselves on performing and composing but we never seems to speak the same language. However, both of us agreed this distinction between our practice is going to provide huge potentials to our project and the sparks and friction during the process is definitely make the project idiosyncratic. We have also reached the consensus that the project is not a work with 50% from Genie and 50% from Michelle but a GenieMichelle+, an elevated project that can demonstrate our different interests in a fused form.

At first, we thought electronic opera can be an option, but that is just an initial thought. After several days of researching combining of electronics and operatic singing, Genie and I came to the meeting well-prepared today with potential projects ideas and thought.

The meeting was very fruitful, packed with a lot fabulous ideas (Occasionally interrupted by a friend of mine, Toby L-A, who happens to be ‘working’ at the upper foyer that day and happens to be fairly interested in our project). Genie and I started the theme by spilling out our incredible themes and examples of works that we think it might be worth looking into or reference on. I showed Genie my findings, some works that combines electronics and singing. One of them is Maya Ackerman’s electronic arrangement Pie Jesu which I found quite repetitive and tedious. But I personally don’t think the electronic and the singing integrate well together, especially with the very strong beats. There is still something to take away from the arrangement though, Ackerman fragmented the themes throughout the piece and loops themes a lot but the arrangement vaguely have ternary form to it. I have also watched a lot arrangements from a YouTube Channel from Opera Music, which includes Divine Strings (an arrangement of Barber’s Adagio for Strings), Carmen (An arrangement of Bizet’s Habanera theme of the Opera Carmen) and Fate Bearer (Arrangement from of O Fortuna from Carmina Burana). Like Ackerman’s arrangement, I found the techno beats in the Divine beats and carmen are quite off-putting, it took away the serenity from the tune Adagio for Strings and the seductiveness and the eroticism of the Habanera theme. However, I found techniques like countermelody, the fragmentation, distortion of the voice in Divine Strings as possible techniques that we can reference on in our project. I think Fate Bearer is the best arrangement as the use of electronics has effectively elevated the theme and provide a further sense of broadness to a rich theme. I also brought up that it might be worth for us to approach or book in a tutorial with our University Choir director Amy Kearsley and one of lecturers Cameron Graham. Amy is currently an active performer of experimental opera in London, recent project includes The Uncanny Things Trilogy. Cameron have also collaborates closely with the Waste Paper Opera, an experimental music theatre collective which based in London. I think they might have some advice for us in shaping our own sonic world.

Genie also showed me what she have prepared. She made a Spotify list of examples that we can reference on with works from Pamela Z, Pauline Oliveros, etc. She also suggested Kate Soper’s work might worth to look into as she is started from a traditional opera background before she embark her quirky exploration. The Open Music workshop that has been an influence to Genie. She suggested that we can do something as freeform, time-event based and self-exploratory as the indetermine music. As we both agree that dance beat from the examples that I found are rather off-putting, therefore Genie suggested that we should focus our work.

I realised that most of the example that I got are reworkings of existing singing repertoires, therefore I then suggested to Genie that reworking existing material form currently operas with be a good starting -point for us to obtain materials to work with. Genie agreed. But rather than sticking to one piece of music like what the above examples demonstrated, we have decided to go crazy on the materials. We will fragmented theme, motives from music and re-contextualise the materials into a rather freeform stream of sonic experience.

Since 2025 is the 20th death anniversary of death of my all-time favourite singer Brigit Nillson. I have suggested to Genie we can get music that Nillson is famous of singing into a medley, Genie also elaborated that rather than purely focusing on operatic singing, we can also adopt different singing approaches like pop, jazz and singing with extended techniques, which we both agreed to be a solution to amalgamate the distinct qualities of electronic and classical music, hence reaching to GenieMichelle+.

Time always goes quickly when you are passionate and enthusiastic of what you do. We did had a really good time but gradually it seems we have reached the stage on narrow things down. Genie and I booked in a time on Thursday next week (20/3) for a jamming section for trial and error and hopefully something that can surprises us. We allocate tasks that each of us should complete during the week before next time we meet. Genie will be responsible to build in some sound palette and percussive sound that we can start with, whilst I will be looking for musical materials from scores like leitmotives, themes from arias that are famously known to be sung by Brigit.

But do you really think we will stop there? Of course not! Genie and I ended the meeting with the construction of the piece (It is like putting different layers of a cake, but in the forms of sounds), the role of singing the project and sound materials that we should include. We agreed that the electronics drones will functioned as the foundation which support voice, which acted as the leaeding component. But singing can also act as a integrated component at times through heavy processing. We can treat voice as the sound object, then loop it, reverse the sounds, shifting the pitch, etc. Call and Response is mentioned as a technique that we should included as we both agreed that it is an universal techniques that are commonly used in different style of singing, which also help to glue the gap between the extinct feature of electronic extended techniques singing and operatic singing.

Genie and I are really a dream team. In this first meeting, we already have gathered a lot conceptual ideas. We are already quite confident on what we are going to try so that we can know our thought in mind are feasible, we also comes with different options and plans. Therefore if one plan doesn’t work, there are always another choices awaiting. And if not, it is always easy for us to come up with a surprise plan on the spot, ideas seems to floods our minds at this stage. Looking for ward to the Jamming section next week!