Klaus Ib Jørgensen, Chuva Obliqua
premiere: Oct. 17, 2010 – Victoria
With the support of the Danish Arts Foundation
Klaus Ib Jørgensen (b. 1967) trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen in music theory (Yngve Jan Trede) and composition (Niels Rosing-Schow). His work as a composer integrates an enthusiastic involvement in music politics, music rights, international networking and music publishing.
Recent compositions by Klaus include HOWL! The Opera (2009) for female voice and sound-processing, Le chant de Pyrène (2008) for recorder, sax and percussion, Rhapsodie der Farben (2006) for accordion, harp, flute and cello and the 72 minute cycle Moon-pain (2003-08) for voice and six instruments.
Klaus’ music has been performed in Paris (Festival Présences), Berlin, Amsterdam, Montréal (Festival Nouvelles Musiques), Toronto, Halifax, Victoria and New York City with musicians and ensembles such as REMIX (Portugal), Paul Hillier, Geir Draugsvoll, James Crabb, Aventa Ensemble (Canada), Reflexion K (Germany), Janice Jackson (Canada), Ensemble Alternance (France) and klettWood (Denmark).
Chuva Obliqua
Chuva Obliqua marks the first of 4 works created as a result of Klaus Ib Jørgensen’s activity as Aventa’s composer-in residence (2008/09 and 2009/10 seasons). Based on the poetry of Fernando Pessoa, Chuva Obliqua (Slanting Rain) was composed as the second part of the trilogy An Encyclopedia of Rain.
Slanting Rain, Fernando Pessoa
The maestro waves his baton,
And the sad, languid music begins…
It reminds me of my childhood, of a day
I spent playing in my backyard, throwing a ball
Against the wall… On one side of the ball
Sailed a green dog, on the other side
A yellow jockey was riding a blue horse…
The music continues, and on the white wall of my childhood
That’s suddenly between me and the maestro
The ball bounces back and forth, now a green dog.
Now a blue horse with a yellow jockey…
My backyard takes up the whole theatre, my childhood
Is everywhere, and the ball starts to play music,
A sad hazy music that runs around my backyard
Dressed as a green dog turning into a yellow jockey
(So quickly spins the ball between me and the musicians…)
I throw it at my childhood and it
Passes through the whole theatre that’s at my feet
Playing with a yellow jockey and a green dog
And a blue horse that looms above the wall
Of my backyard… And the music throws balls
At my childhood… And the wall is made of baton
Movements and wildly whirling green dogs,
Blue horses and yellow jockeys…
The whole theatre is a white wall of music
Where a green dog runs after my nostalgia
For my childhood, a blue horse with a yellow jockey…
And from one side to the other, from right to left,
From the trees where orchestras play music in the upper branches
To the rows of balls in the shop where I bought by ball
And the shopkeeper smiles amid the memories of my childhood…
And the music stops like a wall that collapses,
The ball rolls over the cliff of my interrupted dreams,
And on top of a blue horse the maestro, a yellow jockey turning black,
Gives thanks while laying down his baton on a fleeing wall, and he takes a bow, smiling, with a white ball on top of his head,
A white ball that rolls down his back out of sight…
(published in Fernando Pessoa, Forever Someone Else: Selected Poems, translated by Richard Zenith, Lisbon: Assírio & /Alvim, 2009)