Lo! The Dim Shadows of the Night is a piece for vocal duo and electroacoustic sound, originally composed for the spatial MONOM 4D-sound system. Continuing the work which was started with her 2020 piece Dies Irae, Maria uses a modified form of traditional tonal harmonic language to invoke an uncanny middle ground between the classical western polyphonic vocal tradition and contemporary electronic music.
The piece uses a mixture of algorithmically generated synthesis, created within the SuperCollider framework, and nighttime recordings of the Night Jar bird made in Skuleskogen in Marias home-region in Västernorrland, Sweden.
The piece is sung by Ansis Bētiņš and Artūrs Čukurs from Riga, Latvia. The text is based on fragments from the hymn Ecce iam noctis.
In addition to the fixed electronic components of the music, and the live vocal performance by Bētiņš and Čukurs, Maria joins the ensemble herself playing spatially processed pitched glasses, adding a ghostly shade to the dominant role of the human voices.
Ecce iam noctis tenuatur umbra
lucis aurora rutilans coruscat
Lo! the dim shadows of the night are waning
radiantly glowing, dawn of day returneth
PANOPTIKON
I am proud to announce tha my new album Panoptikon will be released February 2nd on XKatedral.
Panoptikon is a sonic excavation in the form of music for voices and electronics composed in 2020 for an installation in the disbanded Vita Duvan panoptic prison (The White Dove Prison) in Luleå. The work was originally presented as a multichannel sound and light installation where loudspeakers placed in the cells of the prison transmitted the imagined voices of the inmates. Performing vocals on the album are Sara Parkman, Sara Fors, David Åhlén and Vilhelm Bromander.
The title Omnia citra mortem is a legal term that can be translated as: everything until death or everything on this side of death. This piece uses a call-and-response structure between the individual prisoners, starting from single sparse vocal fragments that gradually build into a canonical web of voices, with each voice striving for community while being hindered by the forced isolation of the prison architecture.
This northern prison and its hidden history has been on my mind for years now and it has brought me on quite an unexpected journey, both musically and conceptually, which I look forward to sharin.
Aether is an audiovisual composition for light, brass instruments and synthesis, specifically composed for the re-opening of Båtsmanskasernen II on Skeppsholmen. To enter the building one must pass through a portal made of copper, bronze plates and gold leaf, as well as stones cast in bronze on the ground. This portal is Per Broman's work Eter from 1992.
In this piece I have drawn inspiration from Per Broman's portal and especially the idea of Aether, which, according to disregarded physics hypotheses, was believed to be a form of invisible matter functioning as a kind of fifth light-bearing element.
On several occasions during the duration of the installation the Aether installation will be expanded to include a live musical performance by a brass trio, consisting of trumpet, trombone and tuba. The brass instruments will complement the harmonic climate of the synthetic sounds with an arc moving from blocks of static intervals to individual lines and melodic ornamentation.
16th - 24th of february 2023, with extended concerts 16th, 17th, 21st and 22nd.
Brass trio performers: Ivo Nilsson, Tobias Wiklund, Sami Al Fakir och Emil Strandberg.
Application for light control: David Granström.
Thanks to Statens Konstråd.
THE VIVIAN GIRLS
Henry Darger's story of the Vivian Girls, in “What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal” is possibly the longest work of fiction ever written, found in his room after his death along with illustrations depicting surreal flowery landscapes populated by children and fantastic creatures. His mixed media collage artworks holds scenes of war, naturall disasters and horrific terror depicting young children being tortured and massacred. In these panoramas the story of the seven Vivian sisters takes place, following their rebellion and attempts to free every enslaved child from the Glandelinian overlords.
We welcome you into Henry Dargers dangerous, imaginative and merciless realms. When nature and humanity collapses children will rebel against the adult world in order to save whatever fragments of humanity is left.
The Vivian Girls will play at Göteborgs Stadsteater until the 27th of January.
Direction: Linda Forsell.
Dramatisation: Felicia Ohly.
Scenography & costume: Agnes Östergren.
Composer: Maria W Horn.
Light design: Mira Svanberg.
Mask: Sigrid Nathorst Windahl.
Choreography: Soledad Howe.
◦ Dies Irae in Chiesa di Santa Maria del Rosario 15/12/22 ◦
The stunning Chiesa di Santa Maria del Rosario in Milano was designed in 1932 by Giovanni Muzio. For the 1996 restoration of the church a permanent light installation was commissioned by visual artist Dan Flavin. The neon shades of his ”Untitled'' brings forth the elegance of the space, enhancing the contrast between sharp edges and soft rounded vaults and pillars.
I had the pleasure of performing Dies Irae in this special room, accompanied by a vocal quartet consisting of Beatrice Binda, Sahba Khalili Amiri, Mirea Mollica and Donata Menci.
Thanks to Threes productions, Fondazione Prada and Mmt creative lab for bringing this together in such a beautiful way.
HIMLAGLÖD
Piece by Maria W Horn & Mats Erlandsson commissioned by GRM and performed in April 2022 at Maison de la Radio as a part of Présences électronique.
In October 2019 Maria W Horn and Mats Erlandsson traveled to Vardø, a municipality in Finnmark county in the northeastern part of Norway, close to the Russian border.
They used field recording as a way of processing their sliver of time in the area as it unfolded to them. A hailstorm heard through the window of an emptied bowling hall, the sound of walking through pieces of shattered rock inside an abandoned bunker, the ever-burning gas-lit fire of a memorial monument commemorating the victims of witchcraft trials in 1621.
All the recordings show recurring interference patterns in the recordings themselves likely caused by the presence of the radar station present on the island.
The processed field recordings form a synthetic ever-changing room that still remains the same. These sonic imprints with all of their particular characteristics, heard through the ears of two transient visitors, served as an aural setting in which the synthesized parts of the piece could manifest as the pair immersed themselves in modular synthesizers at the GRM in August 2021. The work done at the GRM focused on developing a shared tonal language based on near-stable harmonic timbres drawn up by a combination of the analog instruments at the studio and digital algorithmic techniques for sound generation.
Funeral Folk - Maria W Horn & Sara Parkman
Release date july 6th
Some photos from las Pawillion Poznan, captured by BW Pictures and a moment from Gärten der Welt, captured by Roland Owsnitzki. .
Dies Irae in Katariina Kirik Tallinn 05/05/22
Thank you Naiskoor singers and Edmar tuul for making this come together with such power and beauty.Thanks to Tallinn Musik Week for hosting this performance and to Giorgio Salmoiraghi for all of the effort and care poured into this project ~
THE DAWN CHORUS
The Dawn Chorus premieres on Thursday, March 10 at Elverket in Stockholm, followed by a tour in the north of Sweden.
I am glad to finally get to share the outcome of this process, as it have inhabited much of my thoughts this winter ~
Dance: Rebecka Berchtold, Sam Huczkowski, Nastia Ivanova, Chang Liu, Leila Verlinden, Jade Stenhuijs, Jonathan Starr, Alban Ovanessian
Choreography: Stina Nyberg
Scenography & Costume design: Jenny Nordberg
Music Composition: Maria W Horn
Light Design: Sofia Linde & Hannele Philipson
Hair and Make up: Jessica Hedin
Rehearsal Direction: David Norsworthy
DIES IRAE
I had the pleasure of once again presenting Dies Irae for a live audience, this time working with Voc-a-lises vocal quartet for a special performnace on Saint Ghetto Festival at Dampfzentrale in Bern.
Photos by Sabine Burger and Nat Urazmetova.
Stigsjö Kyrka - organ rehearsal tape
Stigsjö Kyrka is the first in a series of rehearsal tapes containing recordings of pieces for four handed organ and electronics. The pieces are composed for, or adapted to, specific organs and the acoustic environments they inhabit.
Stigsjö Kyrka is a church located in the area where I grew up - in the countryside of Västernorrland, in the north of Sweden. The current church is a stone construction built on the same spot as two earlier wooden churches, one of which burned down in a fire caused by a lightning strike in 1559.
The pieces are arranged and played together with Mats Erlandsson, using both a small choir organ and the grand pipe organ. This musical arrangement uses amplified and electronically treated organ in conjunction with a fixed electronic part to create a hybrid instrument with a transformed timbre still anchored in the harmonic language associated with the music traditionally performed on the instrument.
The spectral organ, may 12th 2021
Me and Mats Erlandsson got a visit from Svedish television when rehearsing the Organ in my home region at Stigsjö Kyrka. The program is avaliable at SVTplay
The Spectral Organ, 5 july 2021
Together with Mats Erlandsson, I will be performing a set on the pipe organ at the Grazer Dom on the occation of Elevate Festival 2021.
The evening will be shared with Annan von Hausswolff, Lucas Lauermann and Brian Eno.
PANOPTIKON / VITA DUVANS LAMENT
Inside the installation at the Vita duvan prison, nov 2020.
VITA DUVANS LAMENT
Vita duvans lament is a multichannel audiovisual installation for Luleå Biennial, one of the oldest international art biennials in Scandinavia, taking place in Norrbotten, the northernmost region in Sweden.The installation will open with limited capacity from the 21st of November 2020, and run until the beginning of February 2021.
Vita Duvans Lament combines light and electronic sounds with a recorded vocal cycle, specifically composed for the cell prison Vita Duvan (The White Dove) in Luleå. The cycle is composed based on the imagined individual voices of the inmates, represented by loudspeakers placed in the various cells of the prison. Together they form a slowly evolving melodic weave, the voices striving to express a common experience. Each voice strives for this commonality, but is hindered by the forced isolation of the prison architecture. The periodical circulation of amber lights directed both inwards from the prison cells and outwards towards the prison tower are reminiscent of the cyclical shift between daylight and darkness.
Vita Duvan in Luleå is the only Swedish prison built with inspiration from the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon. The circular prison structure with its central monitoring site was meant to create a sense of invisible omniscience whose main function was to make the inmates aware that they could be constantly monitored, without having any way of checking if this was the case. From the opening of the prison in 1856 until its closure in 1979, prisoners were detained for, among other things, theft, perjury, drunkenness, domestic violence and vagrancy. Over the years, more than fifty-four women stayed in prison charged with child murder, a crime that needed to be atoned for by beheading and burning at the stake.
How is a consciousness affected by the sensory deprivation that an isolation cell entails? In Vita Duvans Lament Maria W Horn is trying to imagine the experience of the individual prisoner, whose first three years were often spent in total isolation, during which all contact with other prisoners was strictly forbidden. The silence and uncertainty, the scarce space whose only indication of the passage of time is the cycles of daylight. Prisoner biographies and interrogation records testify to how the inadequate nutrition, thin air and total absence of stimulation forced the prisoners to develop strategies to stimulate the brain to avoid suffering from psychosis.
Through the extensive reform of the Western penal system from the 18th century onwards, the former corporal punishments of torture and death, as well as punishments of shame and public humiliation were replaced by new technologies for social control through spatial isolation and surveillance. The interior of the cell prison was seen as an efficient and silent machinery, through which the isolation - a nightmare for the soul - would gradually bring about an inner change of the prisoner.
The vocal cycle is sung by Sara Parkman, Sara Fors, David Åhlén & Vilhelm Bromander. David Granström has developed a custom application for audiovisual syncing of the lights. Thanks to Genelec for lending me loudspeakers, and to Anton Andersson, Eric Sjögrén and Erik Berg for lending me lights.
FÄLTINSPELNINGAR FRÅN TERRES DEL L'EBRE
In August of 2016 Maria W Horn and Mats Erlandsson traveled to Balada in the Terres de I’Ebre region of Catalonia, Spain, for a two-week residency courtesy of the Eufonics festival in collaboration with EMS.
The geographical characteristics a visitor first encounters in the Terres de I’Ebre delta are defined by the development of industrial agriculture. Endless rice fields stretch through the flat landscape, framed by canals of water to sustain growth. Even the air is saturated with a vague scent of rice. This transmutation of the soil impacts the sonic environment, the buzzing of the irrigation system, the hypnotic constant chirping of crickets, the loud bang from the water pump that echoes through the delta at regular intervals.
Taking the opportunity to collaborate on a project specifically made within the context of the aural environment they found themselves in, and using the resources available to them, the pair decided to make a musical work based entirely on field recorded material transformed through extensive digital editing and processing. Working quickly in the isolation offered by the residency they recorded found material at night and spent the days shaping these recordings into four compositions that move on a dense continuum between drone, noise and generative music all imprinted with the textural characteristics of the immediate surroundings of that time and place.
Through the four compositions the work shows a sonic imprint of an environment shaped by human hands over an almost endless period of time.The resulting music was performed in concert during the Eufonics festival of 2016 and was originally released on cassette tape by XKatedral in 2017 under the moniker Dufwa. The video is made using parts of a documentary film about the area, made in 1962 by Joan Capedevila Nogués.
Dies Irae is a latin poem describing the last judgement, the time when the souls of men are summoned for a final divine judgment and the unsaved are cast into eternal flames.
Lacrimósa dies illa, / qua resurget ex favílla / iudicándus homo reus. Dies irae, dies illa / solvet saeclum in favílla.
Den dagen är full av tårar / när ur askan uppstår / den skuldtyngda människan till dom. Vredens dag, den dagen / skall upplösa världen i aska.
That day of wrath / that dreadful day / shall heaven and earth in ashes lay. Full of tears and full of dread / is that day that wakes the dead / calling all with solemn blast / to be judged for all their past.
INTERLOCKED CYCLES FOR SINEWAVES is now released on the Irrlicht label as part of a cassette compilation conceptualized around the idea of Transmutation.
”Maria W Horn initiates a dialogue with the modern mythical figure of Satoshi Nakamoto. In “Bitcoin open source implemen-tation of P2P currency”, published in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, Nakamoto urges us to replace the trust-based model in corporate and state finance with cryptographic chains of transactions through a decentralised virtual currency. Analogous to an accelerating freeze frame of the innumerable algorithmic trades taking place every second on the global stock exchange; the glacial mounting of both tempo and tension in Horn’s composition slowly reveal the complex tapestry which its seemingly simple and repetitive patterns weave.”
Transmutation – the conversion of one element into another – is the overarching principle for this release in which four contemporary artists transform iconic historical texts into sound; through breath and bells, field recordings and strings to the repeating cycles of pure sine waves. The texts themselves deal with themes ranging from the elevation, or divination of the human soul, to the conversion of electrical currents into cryptocurrency. Together they loosely trace their common denominator – Alchemy – throughout a Western history of ideas.
EPISTASIS is out today, available for listening on Spotify and Apple music, and for purchase at the Hallow Ground Bandcamp.
"Like the snow in the cover, an almost White on White composition, the players lay down sheet after sheet of tones that, even when conforming clearly cut sequences, feels like staring into the sky. There’s a certain intensity to it, gazing into something too vast to apprehend, but small enough to take in, the density of any single point enough to cause a measure of vertigo. Just when the first “Cycle” is coming to an end, with all its elements now in play managing to keep the illusion of the simplicity of the first few strokes of piano, the titular track emerges from the storm."
THUNDERSTRUCK has its US Premiere at CounterPulse, San Francisco Apr 25-26, 8pm
Alternating Currents US Premiere at Stanford Live, Stanford University, 27 april 19.30pm
Thunderstruck is an intermedial electricity show choreographed and performed by Stina Nyberg, with music composed by Maria w Horn.
The composition process included working with a frequency-controllable Tesla coil; an electrical resonant transformer circuit used to produce high-voltage, low-current, high frequency alternating-current electricity, originally invented by Nicola Tesla.
Thunderstruck departs from the 19th century phenomena of touring electricity shows. At a time when electricity was still a scientific novelty it was displayed in public performances as acts of magic. Today, an heir to the electricity magic show is the Tesla coil performance, making use of the spectacular sound and light effects the coil produces.
Kontrapoetik is now avaliable for pre-order on the
XKatedral bandcamp.
The limited edition 12"vinyl includes a sheet of lamented pressed flowers from Ångermanland, picked, dried and arranged by myself.
ÅNGERMANLÄNDSKA BILDER
Ångermanländska Bilder is an Audiovisual Piece that was commissioned by the Art Museum in Härnösand in 2017. The commission was part of a larger project where several composers and visual artists with connections to the area were invited create something based on material found in their main collection - Quistska samlingen. Maria w Horn has been using Super-8 footage that depicts the environment of Ångermanland from 1930-1940. The video is a sort of documentation over the the manor houses of the rural community, the steamboats transporting timber along the river, also their sawmill before and after its closure. The piece is composed using the EMS Buchla 200, a reel to reel tape machine and archival field recordings.
"Less shot through the head with a diamond bullet than being walloped repeatedly with a crystal hammer, Maria W. Horn’s ‘Excitation – Frustration – Excitation’ matches elegance with brutality in admirably brain-wrenching fashion. Tough kickdrums and serrated noise jags serve the pain, their unquiet digital gristle occasionally recalling Ben Frost at his glowering best. The title track is a fine example, its percussion stomping holes in the space time continuum through which pour gibbering waves of sleety, saturated howl."
Ljudskogen is an interactive installation commissioned by the Swedish Museum of Performing Arts.
It was constructed in collaboration with the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and I was invited to work on the audiovisual composition.
The installation consists of five interactive synthetic strings which form an audiovisual installation that also serves as an instrument.
The audio design consists of live-generated audio synthesis using motion-data from the plucked strings to trigger sound.
Each string has a selection of frequencies that are all multiples of the same fundamental tone. Each time the string is plucked a randomly chosen frequency from the selection is triggered. Thereby the sound in the room always consists of a five note chord derived from the same fundamental that changes character whenever new multiples are triggered.
The instrument consists of a custom built phase synthesis patch tuned in just intonation developed using the SuperCollider programming language/synthesis engine. The degree of modulation, ADSR, feedback as well as several other parameters are affected by the the incoming interactive data. In the floor beneath each string are vibrating subsonic plates that adds haptic feedback from the instrument. The LED lights are designed to follow the sound and reinforce the strings current state.
DESERTED BUT NOT UNINHABITED
Deserted but not uninhabited is an audiovisual composition commissioned by the Swedish Radio for Arts Birthday party 2016.
The musical structure is built as a palindrome, exploring the auditory illusions of decaying shephard tones, bowed piano strings and trance gates.
The piece is inspired by past visions of human colonization of space, visualized on early Super-8 science fiction movies like Cat Woman of the Moon, Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, queen of outer space.
By manipulating the video in different ways, from physical manipulation of analogue tape to digitalization and processed by modern video editing tools, the very grit and artifacts makes visible a historic lineage of technological evolution.
CD-R / Cyanine is an audiovisual piece originally composed for multichannel sound, commissioned 2015 by Audiorama, Stockholm.
In this piece the harmonic spectrum of the synthesis is divided into several layers and given different attributes in terms of physicality: the lower frequency layers contain a higher grade of stability, while the rate of change gradually increases further up the frequency spectrum. The audio material has been recorded onto CD-R discs, which then where scratched, using the resulting glitches as a contrasting accentuation in the piece. The visual part contains two simultaneously displayed close up videos of liquid experimentation using Cyanine fluorescent dyes and CD-R discs reflecting light.
To create reverberation I have used impulse responses from the old radio tower Taufelsberg in Berlin, recorded during my year of exchange studies at Univärsität der Kunste in 2014.
Matt McDermott Reviews Mutek Mexico for Resident Advisor. Photos by Conception Huerta.
"I was pleasantly surprised to spot Maria W Horn, the Swedish experimentalist and XKatedral cofounder, on the bill. Before her set, she told me her audiovisual show consisted of two strobing LED lights. She delivered MUTEK's most dynamic performance, oscillating between thrilling noise and sub-bass violence, and more subtle vibrations—funereal organ work along the lines of Kali Malone or Ellen Arkbro—which easily bled into minimalist sine wave experiments. Unfortunately, during these quiet sections, Circle Of Live's beats were easily audible in Sala C. Still, Horn's alien frequencies pleased a small and devoted crowd of freaks. A man inexplicably wearing a luchador mask lurked to the left of the stage. Another in sunglasses stood blissful and motionless against the strobes."
Facshinoma festival at Mooi Collective Mexico
Review (in spanish) at Ultramarinos.com
Diverted Units Is a serie of audiovisual pieces sculpted out of the crudest building blocks of electronic music; White noise and sinewaves. Hard, quantified units are linked together with pulsating timbres forming a sharp sequence of pieces.
The series was finalized 2011 and released by sthlm/london label Holodisc 2016.
SYNERGY
Music for Grand Piano and live electronics. The piece was premiered at Fylkingen 2013, performed by Lisa Ullén.
CD-R/CYANINE
