Natasha Barret, compositore&performer
Saturday 10 April
Teatrostudio
10.- CHF
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‘Touch: Sensory-seekers, Forbidden touch, Contact’ – 14:35, 2025
‘Speaking Spaces no.1: Heterotopia’ – 25:00, 2021
A NEW WORK (possibly a world premiere) – 10:00 (approx.), 2027
‘Touch’ was originally titled ‘Tails of Touch’ — in the sense of a tail, or the glimmer of something fading away. In English, the word ‘tails’ is a homophone of ‘tales’. Here, the spoken sound is ambiguous and could suggest both. Both ‘tail’ and ‘tales’ are appropriate for the soundscapes I reveal in the composition. I like the ambiguity. It can evoke reflection, mislead you and lead you down a new path of listening, only for you to realise you’ve been taken elsewhere. The risk is that this intentional ambiguity might be lost in translation for non-native English speakers. So, for the premiere — which took place at the MIXTUR Festival in Barcelona, which also commissioned the work — I shortened the title simply to “Touch”.
“Tails and Tales of Touch” is about touch as physical affection, as healing and as a sensory experience. There is a longing for human contact, and its absence as isolation and rejection. There is the longed-for embrace and the sensation it brings to the body. There is the touch of the unknown, the forbidden touch, and the contact or touch of nature. Touch consists of three sections that flow almost seamlessly: Sensory-seekers; Forbidden touch; Contact. 2021. I can no longer remember when I realised it: instead of hearing the dog barking, the hawk screeching, the traffic or the child, I heard the forest, the mountain, the rock face, the city. It was more than just spaces speaking through their acoustic reflections. These encounters contradicted normal perception, and became transformative experiences during my walks through the landscape. For me, these areas now contained more layers of meaning than was immediately apparent to the eye and ear.
‘Speaking Spaces’ is a series of works exploring alternative conceptions of shared space. Without knowing what to call this first piece, I came across Foucault’s concept of Heterotopia as a mirror, which seemed to embody much of what I was experiencing. ‘Speaking Spaces no.1: Heterotopia’ is a journey from a forest to a winter shore.
Composer, multimedia artist and researcher. She creates live acousmatic, electronic and electroacoustic music, sound installations in public spaces and audiovisual works. She is widely recognised for her artistic exploration of 3D sound and ambisonics. Her work is commissioned and performed worldwide and has received awards in over 35 international competitions, including the most prestigious prize available to Nordic composers, the Nordic Council Music Prize. In addition to her solo career, she collaborates with instrumentalists, visual artists, architects and scientists, often drawing on data that emulates or is generated by real-world processes. His most significant works include 3D audiovisual pieces with the US-based OpenEndedGroup, sonifications within science-art collaborations with geoscientists, and collaborations with numerous soloists and ensembles such as L’Itinéraire (FR), the Cikada Quartet (NO) and, more recently, the SWR Symphony Orchestra (DE). He has held teaching and research positions in Norway and Denmark, and now works as a freelancer.
