READER: MOUNTAIN & MAIDEN

DISRUPTED REFLECTION

Disrupted Reflection – for saxophone solo and electronics – explores the notion of sonic reflection. Overlapping layers of mixed sounds blur the distinction between the original, expanded, and transformed. Through this interaction, sound moves unpredictably between presence and pass, impulse and response. Real and reflected sounds intertwine, blurring the space between them. No reflection ever returns unchanged.

Huihui Cheng

AMBER BLACKCURRANT TIME

Written for and in close collaboration with Patrick Stadler.

“The following poem can serve as a program note, along with the first page, which you’re welcome to publish online.”

Elena Rykova

WOLPERTINGER

The Wolpertinger is a Bavarian mythical creature whose exact origin is unclear. It is described and depicted as a hybrid creature in various forms, for example as a squirrel with a duck’s beak or a rabbit with duck wings. The piece for the virtual version of the Minimoog synthesiser deals in a similar way with precisely this mixture between the expanded timbre possibilities offered by the digital version (e.g. polyphony) and the functions of the original instrument, e.g. the oscillators and filters.

Georgia Koumará

MOUNTAIN & MAIDEN

Mountain & Maiden is an experimental documentary by Shmuel Hoffman and Anton von Heiseler. It follows a day in the life of Aspiya, a 10-year-old girl living with her family near South Asia’s largest landfill in New Delhi. Although she works amidst a literal mountain range of garbage, Aspiya’s voice ultimately conveys resilience, hope, and dignity.

The film contains no original sound, a silent film for the 21st century. Instead of the classic silent film piano, the score is built around multiple keyboards – including a “silent film keyboard” consisting of 88 samples. These samples were created from original audio material provided by the filmmakers. I worked with it by extracting frequencies, layering them, adding electronic textures, field recordings, and new recordings. Each key holds a miniature composition.

In addition, there is amplified piano and a second sample keyboard featuring Aspiya’s spoken words, combined with a simultaneous (asynchronous and impossible) live translation. The goal was never to imitate or reproduce Aspiya’s world – that would be presumptuous – but rather to expose our own perception and distance as part of the listening. The drip of a tap in New Delhi is swallowed again and again by the white noise of water in my own apartment. A slow pan across the landfill is accompanied by a strict fugue played on the sample keyboard, where all the sounds spin and collide.

The concert setting is absurd: a grand piano before a garbage mountain.
A mountain of keyboards. Computers. Loudspeakers. A stage.

The filmmakers had asked me to write a composition, also to go beyond the usual documentary format. The film is visually poetic. Human silhouettes against extraordinary light, drifting fog. But this fog is not just atmosphere – it is toxic. People there move without any protection. 40% of children suffer from respiratory illnesses. The water is contaminated. In some sense, our waste ends up there too – and our responsibility. And yet, Mountain & Maiden is also about the human longing for happiness – and how, even in the harshest conditions, one’s outlook can illuminate life from within, with strength and grace.

Sarah Nemtsov

A Note from the Filmmakers:
All proceeds from this film go directly to Aspiya and her family.