Output details

"A painter of figures in rooms"

Performed by ensemble EXAUDI

The researcher is the musical director of the vocal ensemble EXAUDI that brought "A painter of figures in rooms" by Aaron Cassidy through its process of development to its first performance and recordings.

The research goal was to create a work that is a physical counterpoint of individual elements of vocal sound production. Thus the research process required the singers to isolate aspects of sound generation such as air pressure, vocal-fold tension, mouth-movement, tongue position and glottis tension/position as the raw materials from which the piece could be built. The role of the researcher / music director was key in this process of unlinking almost habitual clusters of vocal practice, for different singers needed individual guidance on how to explore these new ways of using the voice to explore the boundaries of vocal potential. The researcher developed vocal abilities in his singers that stripped away the veneer of learnt vocal-expressive behaviours revealing the raw physical humanity of the musicians. This aesthetic goal – shared by the composer – explains the reference in the work’s title to the portraits of Francis Bacon: excoriating examinations of unmediated humanity. The researcher directed this experimental and practical research process that preceded and informed both the emergence of the composer’s score and the notation system that was eventually employed. Thus the researcher formed the bridge between, on the one hand, the insights and physical abilities of the performers, and on the other the aesthetic goals of the composer.

The rehearsal / performance process that the researcher led was therefore one of experimentation leading to realisation in its Southbank performance and subsequent commercial recording.