Chris Stover’s Helical Ensemble This concert is taking place on unceded land of the Turrbul and Yuggera people of Meanjin. We respectfully offer these sounds to Elders past, present and emerging, and extend that offering to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues and leaders throughout our communities.
El suspiro
Chris Stover
Zahir
Chris Stover
Autofocus
Chris Stover text by Angélica Freitas
Helical
Chris Stover
vida aérea
Chris Stover text by Angélica Freitas
Olha maria
Antonio Carlos Jobim, Chico Buarque and Vinicius de Moraes arr. Chris Stover Biddy Healey - voice Dominic Machen - drums Brodie McAllister - trombone Steve Newcomb - piano Nadje Noordhuis - trumpet Nick Quigley - bass Chris Stover - trombone and conducting Diana Tolmie - woodwinds
The first two compositions, ‘El suspiro’ and ‘Zahir’, are inspired by the lyrical prose of Argentine novelist, poet and essayist Jorge Luis Borges. These are part of a series of compositions each of which, in true Borgesian spirit, zooms in on a minute detail in one of Borges’s texts and then zooms back out into an alternate fantasy universe, imagining alternative histories and possibilities. ‘El suspiro’ draws in this way from an incidental scene in the short story ‘El muerte’. In Islam, zahir refers to the apparent, exoteric meaning of things: what can be experienced, which exists in a complex relationship with esoteric or hidden meaning. Borges’s ‘El zahir’ is a story about the transformation of reality and the porous border between living and dreaming.
‘autofocus’ and ‘vida aérea’ are settings of poems by the contemporary Brazilian poet Angélica Freitas, both published in her 2007 collection Rilke Shake. I’ve set five of Freitas’s poems for this ensemble, which have had performances in Seattle, New York and Phoenix. The poems and translations are below. ‘Helical’ is the first composition I wrote for what has become a malleable eponymous ensemble: sometimes a quartet, sometimes as many as nine instruments. As its title suggests, it unfolds as a series of spirals—not exactly a helix, but ‘helical’, ‘helix-like’. ‘Olha maria’ is a stunning art song, the product of a collaboration by three of Brazil’s most renowned musical artists: Antonio Carlos Jobim, Chico Buarque and Vinicius de Moraes. It first appeared on Buarque’s seminal, provocative 1971 record Construção.
‘autofocus’ o remordimento é algo muito difícil você me disse mordendo o próprio rabo
remorse is something very difficult you told me biting a morsel off your tail
eu te compreendi enquanto você dava voltas e baixei o volume do rádio
I got you while you spun around and I turned down the radio
era um scherzo um sei lá um allegro andante não era boa trilha sonora
it was a scherzo a who knows an allegro andante it wasn’t a good soundtrack
enquanto me ocupava dessas tralhas você já tinha se engolido pela metade
while I dealt with that crap you’d already swallowed yourself by half
o remordi é al mui di eu chamei a ambulância
rem is some ve dif I called the ambulance (translated by Hilary Kaplan)
‘vida aérea’ o quanto você quer, me diga, com frio na barriga proclamar norte onde seu nariz aponte, se livrar do que não interessa, com força, abrir a cabeça, meter pés pelas mãos, com pressa, não importa, sentar no escombro ombro a ombro com a obra, me diga me diga, com frio na barriga, quanto tempo perdido, quantos reais no bolso, quantos livros não lidos, quantos minutos de espera, quantos dentes cariados, me diga o quanto você quer isso tudo e para onde quer que envie, se você quer que embrulhe tell me how much you want, getting chills in your gut, to call north wherever your nose points, let yourself go full steam from the dull, open your mind, be topsy-turvy, hasty, carefree, sit in the wreck shoulder to shoulder with the work, tell me tell me, getting chills in your gut, how much time lost, how much cash in your pocket, how many books unread, how many minutes waiting, how many teeth decayed, tell me how much you want all this and where you want me to send it, and how best to wrap it (translated by Hilary Kaplan)