Kronos Quartet - Nunavut

| No Comments

Last night I saw Kronos Quartet at the Chan Center. The highlight of the night was the premiere of Nunavut, a collaboration with Tanya Tagaq, an Inuit throat singer best known for working with Bjork on her latest album. (A close second highlight-wise was Sigur Ros' Flugufrelsarinn, which was quite beautiful.)

Tagaq has an astounding voice and physical presence, and the piece had an improvisational air - unlike the rest of the performance, the members of Kronos performed standing up and without sheet music, as Tagaq approached each in turn for a call-and-response movement. I believe this was a deliberate echo of the traditional form of Inuit throat singing as described in the evening's program: "Inuit throat singing is ... more closely associated with vocal games or breathing games. Two women usually face each other-one leads, while the other responds." (This should be familiar to those who have seen Atanarjuat, which contained a traditional example of throat singing.)

Luckily, instead of attempting to describe the performance in further detail, I can tell you to tune into In Performance on February 23rd, as the concert was recorded by the CBC and will be broadcast in its entirety.

Leave a comment

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by was published on January 29, 2006 2:44 PM.

Rothko Chapel was the previous entry in this blog.

Trouble & Desire is the next entry in this blog.

This is marginalia.org, a weblog by Bill Stilwell. I take the occasional photo.

Pages

Powered by Movable Type 4.24-en