Slippfest at Notam: Maja Ratkje
Releaseparty for Maja Ratkje’s Crepuscular Hour at Notam.
Maja Kjelstrup Ratkje: Crepuscular Hour (2LP+CD+DVD/CD+DVD)
Screening of DVD in 5.1-surround sound.
Notam invites you to this combined release and screening of Crepuscular Hour by Maja S. K. Ratkje on the 7th of April. It will be a rare and good opportunity to experience this piece, the way it is recorded and mixed in 5.1-surround. The film is made by Kathy Hinde and consists, like the music, from recordings made in Huddersfields Town Hall during the performance in 2012.
The CD, DVD and LP is released by Rune grammofon on the 18th of March.
Facebook-event here
Tickets can be booked here
Crepuscular Hour is written for three choirs, three pairs of noise musicians and church organ. The musicians and a strongly visual light design surrounds the audience, who are in the center and can move themselves freely around. The room is filled with sound in an intense, but almost meditative hour, where the voices blend with the distortion and the noise sometimes taking over. Sometimes they come forward in a broad polyphony with a furious, pre-Christian God singing and asking to be taken seriosly. All the lyrics are taken from The Nag Hammadi Library. The organ is eventually hoisting the music to new dramaturgic level.
The piece is inspired by the phenomena ‘crepuscular rays’, which is when rays of sunlight stream from one point through gaps in clouds or other obstacles. The name comes from their frequent occurrences during the ‘crepuscular hours’ (Crepuscular comes from the Latin word “crepusculum”, meaning twilight), when the contrasts between light and dark are most obvious. The light design is playing with this phenomenon as light is being filtrated through the musicians and the obstacles in the room. ‘Crepuscular’ is also a term used to describe creatures that are primarily active during twilight, that is at dusk or dawn.
Ratkje wrote an early version of Crepuscular Hour on commision from the Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival for a concert in Uranienborg Kirke in 2010. The piece has later been re-written, performed and recorded in the version which now is realised as surround.
Welcome to a screening and release party!
Information taken from, and more information you can find, at: