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Kenopsia (2024)

Performed by the Ekmeles vocal ensemble:

  • Charlotte Mundy, soprano

  • Angela Yam, soprano

  • Elisa Sutherland, mezzo soprano

  • Timothy Parsons, countertenor

  • Tomás Cruz, tenor

  • Gregório Tanigiuchi, tenor

  • Jeffrey Gavett, baritone and director

  • Steven Hrycelak, bass

This piece uses a word from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig as its main source of inspiration.  
Kenopsia - (noun) The haunting quality of seeing a location typically full of  
people in a state of emptiness or abandonment.  
The most common analogy I’ve used to describe this word to people is entering a Walmart full of cars in the parking lot but no one inside with happy music playing in the background. This piece attempts to capture that.

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This piece uses pure data to detect when the singer with a microphone increases above a certain threshold or changes pitch noticeably and then repeats snippets of that singer in the left and right ear randomly. Additionally, all of the singers except the solo part have a single page that would allow them to disperse throughout an audience and stand up when the piece came in the program. However, that obviously doesn't translate to a professional recording so Ekemeles recorded it normally in a round.

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