YUVAL AVITAL

CROWD MUSIC
It has got a lot to do with the sounds of of my hometown, where tens and sometimes hundreds of people sing in various occasions the same prayer, but each one slightly different. The end result is a vibrating intense sonic cloud which grows around you  (in music it is called Heterophony).


Opposite to the western concept of choir, which is build on hierarchy, “clean”
musical performance based on accuracy and on an a priori musical knowledge, the voices of the crowd in REKA should be various and individualistic, becoming through unity an environment, a texture which covers, uncovers and indicates a sonic ambient in which the events are born.

 Working with  LAMA SAMTEN YESHE RINPOCHE on the 5 elements Mudra - the challange is to adapt it to time, score and conductor's indications.

Cannot wait til he will sing it with the crowd - will be fantastic !!!

I am literately working day & night on the crowd part of REKA....In one week I'm done ! please stay tuned for online tutorials, downlodable score and much fun !!!

The mantras, mandalas, chants, prayers, rituals of cleaning the the karma, breathing meditations are anchored in the voice. The human voice is a vessel in which the Bön priests are putting verbal and non verbal metaphysic meanings of their beliefs regarding the essential functions  of their reality.

It is interesting to reflect about the use of vocals in the Bön culture and in Buddhism in general, in comparison to the musical use of "Amen" in the European Cristian liturgy - while both carry a function of a meditative word rather than an informative word (even though that in Hebew the word "Amen" carry many meanings deriving from its root A.M.A.N - which could hint art, practice, faith, artist) the Catholic tradition use its AMEN either as a closing pattern (all musical parameters go down) or as a rich base of musical movement and decoration (Melisma in musical terms), the vocals demostrated by Lama Samten are a rapresentation of the constant, the invariable, the eternal. This opposing difference - or complimentary relations if you wish - makes me think of the great debate between Heraclitus of Ephesus and Parmenides of Elea: 

Working with a LAMA
Lama Samten Yeshe Rinpoche is around my age. He was born in a small village in Tibet and from the age of 8 had entered the Bön Buddhism as a monk. he studied with great masters, and also had been the music Master of 400 priests in a temple. He hold a Doctor in philosophy degree and is teacher of the sacred masks dance of the Bön tradition. Now he is based in Paris and travels all around Europe to teach meditation and philosophy. I meet Lama Smten in the apartment of Judith, his assistant and a new dear friend of mine. In 2 minutes we become friends. He tell me that he will donate his payment for the concerts to his order and that the project has a lot in common with the Bön belief of peace, dialogue and compassion between men beings. It is important for him to explain me his motivation for the project, since some of the things I ask him to do are very sacred and also sometimes secret within the Bön culture.

REKA by YUVAL AVITAL


MASSIVE SONIC WORK FOR SIX TRADITIONAL SINGERS, 
TWO PERCUSSIONS AND A CROWD OF HUNDREDS OF VOICES

Yuval Avital presents REKA, commissioned by Warsaw Autumn Festival and co-produced by MITO-SettembreMusica, a large sound experiment that intends to involve the local public inviting them to participate in the creation of a fresco made up of hundreds of voices, coordinated on scene by two conductors, two percussionists and six extraordinary singers who represent a selection of the most unusual ancient vocal traditions in the world.

Following his previous three massive sonic creations (KARAGATAN for 100 gongs & bamboo [Philippines 2013]; GARON for 45 tubas, 6 percussions, choir, live electronics & 3 conductors [Anish Kapoor’s Dirty Corner closing event, Milan 2012]; Mise en Abîme for 34 accordions, soloists & crowd of 100 voices [RAI, Milan 2011]), REKA is a rare sonic experience including numerous performers : 

Six extraordinary traditional singers from rare and ancient vocal traditions, two contemporary classic percussion soloists playing gongs, plates and metals, 
a huge vocal “Crowd” - an anti-choir formed by a heterogeneous group of participants with no need of previous musical knowledge - that will be composed of the residents of the city in which performances will take place, guided by coded gestures of the conductor and a “user friendly” graphic & verbal score.

The main component of this work is the VOICE - the most essential and ancient sonic tool of all.

In REKA the voice extends from techniques and aesthetics of millenary traditions, to shouts and whispers, from precise musical languages to complex sonic textures; uniting and overlapping parallel events until reaching an extreme weaved texture, a trembling background from which sonic messages are born in order to vanish again.

The vocal soloists of REKA are :

OMAR BANDINU (SARDINIA / ITALY) Canto bassu (guttural singing) of the Tenores tradition.
ENKHJARGAL ANDARVAANCHIG (MONGOLIA / GERMANY) Guttural and overtone singing of the nomadic Mongolian tradition.
SOFIA KKAIKOV (TAJIKISTAN / ISRAEL) Bukara Jewish tradition, Mugam epic singing.
YUSSUF JOE LEGWABE (SOUTH AFRICA / UK) Zulu tradition, guttural singing and click language.
SAINKHO NAMTCHYLAK (SIBERIA / AUSTRIA) Tuvan shamanic and popolar traditions - biphonic and throat singing.
LAMA SAMTEN YESHE RINPOCHE (TIBET / FRANCE) Tibetan Bön tradition.