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Darya Zvezdina. I must go seek some dewdrops here

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In her installation, I must go seek some dewdrops here, Darya Zvezdina works with the rarest timbres of the human voice, which are usually barely audible. Here, they have been made into a piece of music for four soloists, first recorded in studio, then digitally processed.

Фото: Аня Тодич

Such sounds might be made by the spirits of the trees in GES-2’s Forest: emphatically impersonal at first, they gradually turn into a voice that hints at the presence of some fragile, humanlike creature. Thanks to multi-channel playback, sound arrays of various volumes and durations move around the Forest. They gather into a dense cloud and then disperse, randomly following on from one another.

Darya Zvezdina calls this vibrant organic structure which changes shape in space and time an “acoustic mycelium.” “I don’t think I ever seriously wondered where the boundaries of the concept of ‘music’ may lie, ” she notes, “for me, music is everything that sounds. Or literally everything, if needed.” Her 60-minute piece of music is repeated many times in different versions and projections, transforming the Forest into an endlessly renewing soundscape.

Performers: N’Caged Vocal Ensemble
Conductor: Arina Zvereva

Darya Zvezdina (Chelyabinsk, 1990) is a composer and improviser. She studied at the Ural State Mussorgsky Conservatory (2011–2013) and the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (2013–2018). She has won numerous awards for her compositions, both in Russia and internationally. She was a composer-in-residence at HELLERAU– European Centre for the Arts (2020).

Andrey Guryanov (Moscow, 1987) is an artist, sound engineer, and composer. He studied at the Saint Petersburg State University of Film and Television and the Rodchenko Art School in Moscow. He works with sound installations and with the sound for film, theatre, and performance.

Arina Zvereva (Moscow, 1978) is a conductor and singer. She is the founder and leader of the N’Caged Vocal Ensemble and the choirmaster of the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre. She graduated from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. She won a Golden Mask National Theatre Award in 2021.

N’Caged
Vocal Ensemble specialize in contemporary music. They collaborate closely with Russian and foreign composers and work with the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre on a permanent basis.

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