Wallin
Norway
Integra Commission: Strange News (Version for Ensemble)
Duration: 13:19
Publisher: Chester Novello
Resources: Actor, Ensemble, Electronics and Video
Electronic Specification: Surround Sound
Integra Ensemble: BCMG (United Kingdom)
Integra Research Centre: Birmingham Conservatoire (United Kingdom)
Websites: www.rolfwallin.org, www.strange-news.info
Programme Note
Strange News is a work for actor, ensemble, surround sound and video screen. I had for some time thought of a large work for the concert hall that would deal with matters in the world around me, rather than being a ‘l’art pour l’art’ piece. Not in the traditional ‘political art’ sense, in which one often propagates against a clearly defined ‘enemy’ and proposes a solution for the problem, but rather as an artistic parallel to a TV or radio documentary: A small, but informative window onto a particular matter, where the empathy with those involved is more important than dry information, and where no conclusions are made. The subject matter of Strange News is the so-called child soldiers used in wars around the world. Many of those who have escaped have in recent years been taken into aid programmes, where they are helped to live normally in society again. One of the main challenges is that the social ties to their own community were often brutally cut when they were forced to commit atrocities against their own tribe, even their own family. In the therapy, local traditional rituals have been increasingly used, focusing on the individual as a part of the collective, with song and dance as important ingredients. A glimpse of hope in one of the darkest chapters of African contemporary history is that the therapy actually works.
The Norwegian charity Christian Relief Network (CRN) has long experience of work with child soldiers. Josse de Pauw and I, together with a reporter and a cameraman from NRK (the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation), visited the CRN projects in Uganda and The Congo in 2006. We met former child soldiers, talked to them, and recorded interviews for use in the piece’s libretto. Furthermore, we recorded some sound and video material for use in the performance. And finally, we held auditions to find an actor to participate in the performance, ending up with a wonderful young Ugandan called Arthur Kisenyi. The world premiere of the orchestral version of Strange News took place in the Oslo Concert House in May 2007, with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Christian Eggen. A second performance of this version was given in October 2008 at the Casa da Musica, Porto, who co-commissioned the piece. The ensemble version of the piece was commissioned by Integra and premiered by BCMG, Birmingham.
Biography
Composer, trumpeter and avant-garde performance artist, Rolf Wallin has established a reputation as one of the leading Scandinavian composers of his generation. He studied in Oslo with Finn Morthensen and Olav Anton Thommessen and later at the University of California where his teachers included Roger Reynolds and Vinko Globokar. Wallin’s music combines an intuitive freedom with a rigorous mathematical approach, such as use of fractal algorithms to construct melody and harmony, resulting in a soundworld that often hints at the influence of Ligeti, Xenakis and Berio.
NB
This piece was composed during the first phase of the Integra project and as such does not use the Integra:Live software.