Photo © Caroline Forbes

Recorded July 15^th 2009 at St. Peter’s Church, Whitstable.

Voice

In 2009 I had the chance (thanks to Evan Parker) to spend a day recording duos (voice & birdcall whistles / strohviola & musical saw) with Aleks Kolkowski in St. Peters Church in Whitstable. With the lively acoustics of the church space our duo could unfold all its nuances.

Then Aleks set up the wax cylinder recording equipment for our duo and an improvised voice solo. In contrast to the width of the church, the dark inside of the recording horn literally seemed to drag my voice into itself, and focussed it on a small point, creating astonishing resonances in the metal body of the horn. When we listened back to the fragile quality of the just-manufactured but apparently 100 years old recording I felt as if I had been captured in a time machine…

– U.W.

Ute Wassermannis known as a vocal soloist and c

omposer/performer for her extraordinary, many-voiced and extreme vocal sound-language, which she has brought into experimental/contemporary music in diverse ways. She has developed techniques to “mask” the voice using birdcall-whistles, or resonant objects, and designs sound-installations.

She has performed  throughout Europe, USA, Australia and Asia with musicians of the Berlin and London scenes and in duos including Richard Barrett, Aleks Kolkowski and Birgit Ulher, with “speak easy” (Phil Minton / Thomas Lehn / Martin Blume) and fORCH. As an interpreter she has given premieres of numerous works with ensembles and orchestras composed specially for her voice.

femmes-savantes.net/en/les-femmes-savantes/ute-wassermann

Photo © Caroline Forbes