Catherine Kontz/Rosie Middleton : Open Fund for Music Creators
Catherine Kontz/Rosie Middleton
Catherine Kontz is a London composer whose work focuses on interdisciplinary collaborations, theatricality and the human experience. With recent works for various orchestras (BBCSSO, Orchestre national de Metz, SEL) as well as psycho-geographic soundwalks, operas, happenings, work in theatre and film, and her band French For Cartridge, her output straddles many genres. Mezzo-soprano Rosie Middleton works across experimental music, contemporary opera and performance art. Her collaborations include voice(less) with Laura Bowler, Mira Calix, Esin Gunduz, Catherine Kontz. Recent opera roles include The Blue Woman (Laura Bowler-ROH), and The Carmen Case (Diana Soh-Opera National de Bordeaux, Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg).
12HOURS – a marathon performance for voice and electronics
12HOURS – for voice and electronics – is a new collaboration between composer Catherine Kontz and mezzo-soprano Rosie Middleton examining the concept of endurance in music. Middleton pushes vocal boundaries in an unbroken 12-hour performance, exploring human limits and exhaustion. The immersive staging with cutting-edge spatial sound technology unites art and endurance, inviting audiences to transcend the constant stimuli of the modern world, engage with deep listening and immerse themselves in a profound sonic experience.
Kontz’s score makes use of the structural and dramatic opportunities arising from this mammoth duration and combines pre-recorded vocal material all drawn from samples of Middleton’s voice, with live sound and reaction. The focus is on the effects of repetition and variation, musically and gesturally, exploring the performer’s and audience’s sense of time and reality, as well as exposing the vulnerability of the performer within the process of classical music.