Human w/Rites

by Otto Nuoranne

for an ensemble of 7 players

Description

Human w/Rites was written as part of the Korvat auki association and Musica Nova festival’s joint project commissioning pieces from four composers for a festival concert on February 10th, 2025.

In line with the festival’s theme “togetherness”, I started exploring ideas about the things that people do together and collectively. The first thought was that I want to break the usual classical and contemporary music pattern of every player being confined in their part at all times – the piece is for seven players but has an eighth part which is performed collectively by all the players whenever they are not preoccupied with their own instrumental parts.

I then thought about rites and rituals and became obsessed with the English language homophone rite/write/right/Wright (+ the near-homophone riot). Human rights, human rites, human writes. I decided to incorporate some writing-related props like pens and paper, chanting, body percussion, and other gestures that evoke rites and rituals. A section of the piece is also improvisatory, so every player also gets to “write” a part of the work themselves.

Instrumentation

pic, hn, barsax, kantele, vln, vla, vlc

Category

Chamber Works

Premiere

Musica Nova festival in Helsinki, Finland, in February 2025.

Commisioned by / dedications

Dedicated to Michi

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Archive number

MF36078

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