EN SKOG AV LYD

Five string players and large multichannel setup // String ensemble // HOA
Written for Damkapellet + Lydbrøndene
Commissioned by KLANG festival and Lydbrøndene
Funded by Arts and Culture Norway
30 min
2024

Photo from world premiere live performance with Damkapellet and Lydbrøndene at KLANG festival 2024:


When looking at a map of the 32 sound wells at “Lydbrøndene", their location, and how they are connected, with some imagination, they create an image of a forest with a network of wires connecting all the speakers. “En skog av lyd”, a forest of sound, is inspired by Lydbrøndene and by the way in which individual, scattered trees slowly grow into a forest and how the symbiotic network between plant roots and the fungus mycorrhiza enables them to mutually communicate, exchange nutrients, and warn each other of dangers.

“When I was in Denmark for the first time as a child, having until then only seen small, contorted birch trees in Northern Norway, it was a wonder to me that the enormous beech trees could grow so infinitely high without toppling over. Today I still find them tremendously impressive.”

The work consists of a combination of field and viola recordings made in Danish beech forests and complementary instrumental sounds that intertwine as the trees do underground – connected through networks that have functioned for millions of years, but which, due to the ravages of human beings and their unbalanced relationship to nature, are becoming unstable. When the trees with the largest and widest network are cut down, the network is destroyed, and important communication is lost.

“En skog av lyd” can be performed as as whole, or as three smaller stand-alone pieces.
It was created for five string players and “Lydbrøndene” in Copenhagen, an outdoor space with 32 sound speakers in the ground. The piece was created as a 5th order ambisonics piece and can be presented as such, with or without live musicians.

Concept, composition, ambisonics panning, and costume design: Tine Surel Lange
Created for and performed by: Damkapellet and Lydbrøndene
    Violin: Julija Morgan
    Viola: Pauline Hogstrand
    Viola: Mika Persdotter
    Viola: Josefine Weber Hansen
    Cello: Nicole Hogstrand
    Playback: Finn Markwardt
Technical assistance, mixing and mastering: Michal Sýkora
Viola recordings: Josefine Weber Hansen and Pauline Hogstrand
Violin and cello recordings: Tine Surel Lange
Commissioned by: KLANG festival and Lydbrøndene
Project funded by: Arts and Culture Norway
Premiere Jun 11th 2024, KLANG festival, Copenhagen



Photo: Tine Surel Lange





© 2024 Tine Surel Lange