hand.speak
phoebe bognár + maría muñoz-lopez [2021]
left hand, right hand,
separate but of one body.
you reach out to greet me,
and I do the same.
With palms and fingers,
we too speak.
In a personal and intimate exploration of interaction between people and place (both physical and imagined), hand.speak offers a playful yet deep approach to how we communicate with each other and ourselves.
Mobile phones are required for this piece.
ctrl/fn/esc
phoebe bognár + manca dornik [2022]
ctrl/fn/esc explores the dynamic of self-control versus external control and the dynamics between push and pull. Questions on the autonomy of the performer and the strings that we are pulled (in this case literally) by are at the forefront of this piece.
soaring
maija hyninnen [2011]
“When I was gathering material for soaring for flute and accordion my first idea was a gust of wind: how it blows in different speeds and rattles the leaves and picks up grains of sand while it blows. A mountain ridge or cliff can deflect the wind upwards. If the wind is strong enough it can provide enough force for birds and even small airplanes to keep them floating in air with no extra force needed.
The capricious wind in the first part of the piece creates a lift on which the second part is soaring (to soar – to glide). The use of energy is slowly reducing towards the end of the piece.”
-Maija Hyninnen
Et Error No. 2
Kelley Sheehan [2021]
“I’ve had these windup toys for years. Purchased them, initially, for their bright colors and size to run tests on a program I’d built for a completely unrelated project. Though immediately their potential began whispering.
The related soundscape between these toys and the piccolo is obviously a central idea to this piece, the clicking and the pitched noise, but there is also something very tangible about the relationship of the winding down/winding up function in the toys to that of breathing/the lungs of a flutist that became the underpinnings of this piece.”
-Kelley Sheehan
Petit fragment de paysage
Jürg Frey [2009]
“A few years ago, through the knowledgeable advice of Philippe Jaccottet, I encountered for the first time the work of the Vaudois poet Gustave Roud (1897-1976). Roud’s oeuvre, which is not very extensive, was written in the Haut Jorat countryside, north of Lake Geneva, where he spent his entire life on his parents’ farm. It is a peculiar poetry that speaks from beginning to end of the search for the essential. I would compare his working method to that of a painter: every day he went out, not with his easel, but with his notebook, and roamed the countryside as a flâneur, observer, writer, to lay the basis of his work with his notes.
He perceived existential dimensions in the finest nuances of the weather, the landscape and its inhabitants and made them the basis of his work.
For several years now, the literature of Gustave Roud has accompanied me. The compositions created in this context are an expression of a felt kinship with a poet whose working method and sensibility trigger a precise resonance in me.”
– Jürg Frey
Doll-blind B
Yu Kuwabara (2007/12)
“Doll Blind was first composed for tenor recorder and accordion at the end of 2008 and premiered by Toshiya Suzuki (recorder) and Stefan Hussong (accordion) on 17 January 2008 at Tokyo Opera City Hall.
The revised version for flute and accordion was composed in 2012.
The relationship between dolls and human-beings is one of the very important themes in my thinking. When I face a doll, I feel that “she” is staring back at me however I ought to see the doll. Dolls are unconscious while human-beings are self-conscious. This contrast gives me this strange feeling.
The flute and accordion parts were written so that they sound as if they are snuggling each other. No matter how close they get, they cannot transcend each other. They will never become one and this piece is always filled with imperfections.
-Yu Kuwabara
Tar
Christopher Biggs (2019)
Tar was written for and is dedicated to Collect/Project. The electronics are performed and all generated interactively. The title of the work references tar sands.
Swiss-based duo, Phoebe Bognár and Manca Dornik present «with these hands i…»– a concert program which investigates identity, choice and meaning. Following their acclaimed concert at the Göteborg Arts Sounds Festival in October 2022, the duo is back with a tour featuring an extended collage of pieces for instrumentalists, performers and new works by the duo themselves. The performance is a collision of digital and physical, with multimedia works involving electronics, video and objects in tandem with instruments and performance. «with these hands i…» feasts upon the multiplicity of imagination and identity and reflects upon the (over)saturation of information, ultimately refracting into a kaleidoscope of creative possibilities.
Phoebe Bognár// flutes, performance, composition
Manca Dornik// accordion, performance, composition
phoebe bognár 