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For the upcoming release on March 25, of the new album Breaking News we speak with leading soundscape composer Hildegard Westerkamp.
Track List:
- Breaking News
- Once Upon a Time
- Moments of Laughter (excerpt)
Release Notes – hildegard westerkamp – Breaking News
This album wants to stir, unsettle and surprise. But unlike with breaking news in the regular media, it refuses to transmit feelings of helplessness, fear and terror. Instead it wants to energize and revitalize, even when it grapples with incidents of violence and death. The pieces presented here were created between 1988 and 2012. In their togetherness they highlight and celebrate voices that are often relegated to the personal domain: sounds of new life, of unusual artistic sensibilities, of children’s and female voices. They have the power to tip the balance in our lives, in favour of love, resilience and human compassion. If we choose to listen!
Moments of Laughter (1988)
for female voice and two-channel audio
Moments of Laughter is dedicated to my daughter Sonja Ruebsaat whose voice forms the basis for this piece. I composed this work when she was eleven years old and at that time wrote the following text. Sonja’s voice has accompanied my life for many years now and has brought me in touch with an openness of perception, uninhibited expressiveness and physical presence that I had long forgotten.
I have made recordings of her voice since she was born and from the age of four on, she has made her own recordings of stories and songs. Moments of Laughter utilizes these for the audio portion of the piece, tracing musically/acoustically the emergence of the infant’s voice from the oceanic state of the womb: from the soundmakings of the baby to the song and language of the child. According to Julia Kristeva, moments of laughter are those moments in infancy and early childhood in which the child recognizes the “other” as distinct from the “self”. They are the first creative moments that speak of recognition of self and place. The child expresses these moments with laughter.
The female voice interacts with the 2-channel audio, performing live. It tries to find its own language and music on the one hand, and imitates, reacts to, and plays with the child’s voice on the other hand. It moves through a variety of characters in search of a confident, strong voice. Moments of Laughter explores the edge between the “wilderness” and natural flexibility of the child’s voice and the cultural formations and extended vocal techniques of the female voice.
Moments of Laughter was commissioned by the Vancouver New Music Society with the financial assistance of the Canada Council, and was first performed by Meg Sheppard. The poem “DADADO” was written by Norbert Ruebsaat.
Once Upon a Time (2012)
for two-channel audio
One day in the Fall of 2011 I wrote a fairy tale entitled “The Girl, the Witch, and the Magic Bird”. Ultimately it is about the power of the voice, the poisonous influence of the Muzak Corporation (among others) and the magic of listening and music making.
It seemed obvious that my two grandchildren (10 and 7 at the time) should be the readers of this story. To my great delight they took up the challenge and surprised me with their hard work, endurance, and their lovely ways of speaking and reading. To read such a long story at their age and have it recorded by a very picky ‘Oma’ who wants to have every word and syllable annunciated as clearly as possible, is not an easy task. I was delighted by the creative energies that emerged in all of us during the process and the end result was a series of good recordings from which to choose for this piece.
The girl’s voice is that of my daughter, the mother of the two children, recorded when she was a little girl. Her voice is featured in an earlier piece of mine entitled Moments of Laughter (1988) and reappears here.
The recording of the loon was made by members of the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, in the early 1970s and is used here by permission.
Once Upon a Time was commissioned by the Western Front in Vancouver for a whole-night event in January 2012, entitled Circle of Sleep, the concept of which was conceived by music curator DB Boyko. On the night of the premiere event, the audience reclined comfortably on floor mats with blankets and pillows listening to this bedtime story, perhaps dozing off, relaxed and calmed by the end of it, ready to hear and dream of more sounds to come throughout the night.
Breaking News (2002)
for two-channel audio
For C.
These are not so much programme notes than a series of thoughts that occurred while working on Breaking News.
My first grandchild was born two and a half months after September 11, 2001. Many children have been born since, breaking the news to us of birth and new life and thereby tipping the balance in our lives in favour of love and joy, rather than hate and terror. And still, the news of life in that sense is relegated to personal life and does not carry the same weight and importance in political and public life. It seems to have no bearing on the war actions of those in power or those vying for attention and power through crime and terror, whether they are politicians, terrorists or large corporations forcing their economic visions onto the world. Most broadcasting media play along with this view of what is important news: breaking news in the media tend to be preoccupied with death, war, crime, disaster, terror, not with birth and new life. And the loss of human life in these contexts becomes “collateral damage” in the language of those who cause the deaths.
This piece, Breaking News, is an attempt at a tiny balancing act by bringing into the forefront the sounds of new life—an embryo’s heartbeat, breathing, breastfeeding, a young baby’s voice, etc. These are sounds that we rarely hear in the media and yet they represent a most important driving force in our lives. They speak with energy and resilience, they tell us of vulnerability and how fragile life really is, they make us happy and sad, they speak with urgency, immediacy, with desperation, with joy, with need and desire. Every moment brings new information, every sound brings dramatic news of how this new life is growing into this world. The sounds tell us what is at any one moment.
September 11, 2001 had terrible news of death and destruction for us. Within less than 24 hours of the terror attacks in New York, many TV stations had created a visual logo, a headline and theme music to announce these breaking news with additional drama. Suddenly the terror attacks were being produced for TV, as if they were a movie. What was beginning to terrorize TV audiences in addition to the actual events was their fictionalization in the media. In this context I recall the story of a young child who asked her teacher why the airplanes were crashing into the high rises again and again and again.
Breaking News attempts to comment on all of this and at the same time carries irony in its very core. The sounds of new life are produced into a radio event, framed by sounds that seek attention, and that dramatize—not unlike the way in which CNN produced the war in Afghanistan, supplied by George Bush with various misleading titles and headlines such as “Enduring Freedom.” Breaking News also is a media production, with a title and a dramatized soundscape— but this time around the sounds of new life. It also wants to stir and unsettle the listener with its sounds, change the pace of regular radio broadcasting. It also wants to surprise. In other words it tries to do the same as the regular media. But it refuses to transmit feelings of helplessness and powerlessness. Instead it wants to energize, revitalize. It celebrates new life, love, human warmth and energy in the media framework of “breaking news.”
Many thanks to Sonja Ruebsaat and Luke Martin for recording their first newborn and for generously allowing me to include the sounds of first day-of- life breastfeeding, of breathing, crying, gurgling, early vocal sounds, and laughing. Now, twenty years later, this same grandkid has given their own permission to my use of their early voice and soundmakings in this composition.
Breaking News was commissioned by CBC Radio for its September 11 special programming, and originally created for one-channel (mono) sound. My thanks to John Oliver for his remake of the original track for two-channel (stereo).
ARTISTS
MotherVoiceTalk features the voices of Roy Kiyooka, Hildegard Westerkamp, Agnes Westerkamp, Mary Kiyoshi Kiyooka.
Moments of Laughter features the voices of DB Boyko and Sonja Ruebsaat. Once Upon A Time narrators: Amber Martin-Ruebsaat and Sibling; girl’s voice:
Sonja Ruebsaat.
École polytechnique was performed by the choir of the Université du Québec à Montréal, directed by Miklós Takács.; Lori Freedman, bass clarinet; Lisa Rodrigue and Véronique Lucignano, trumpets; Daniel Fortin, percussion; and Johanne Latreille, bells. The original live recording by Charles Armekanian was the basis for the heightened listening experience presented here.
Breaking News features the voice and sounds of the composer’s first grandchild.
CREDITS
All tracks composed by Hildegard Westerkamp © 2021 (SOCAN) Executive Producer: John Oliver
Editing and mixing: Hildegard Westerkamp
Mastering: John Oliver
Cover photo: Hildegard Westerkamp Cover design: Seiya Oliver
Booklet design: John Oliver
℗ 2022 earsay productions
