MEDIATHEK

Youtube generation Music theatre, written for and performed by HYOID

Contemporary Voices (4 classically trained singers). Approximately 1 hour. Both acoustic and amplified. For black box.
 
Don’t be misled by the academic-sounding title. Anyone who knows the work of British Composer Awards winner Jennifer Walshe, knows that A History of the Voice will be anything but historical.
 
Using her inimitable powers of association to explore the vocal limits of the 4 singers, she references Billy Joel in the same breath as bizarre sect chanting, before questioning what it means to teach a dolphin to count in a New Jersey accent…
 
And is it a woman teaching a dolphin how to talk? And is it 3D printed versions of the human vocal tract? And is it that the brain privileges vocal sounds above others? And is it Britney Spears’s guttural groans? And is it Dufay, and Dunstable, and Perotin? And is it Tom Cruise’s laugh when he talks about Scientology? And is it your mother’s voice, heard through bone and blood? And is it artificial intelligence that can predict how pre-modern really sounded by studying the the facial expressions of singers in paintings? And is it Ultimate Warrior’s roar? And is it Gwyneth Paltrow’s voice cracking as she gives her Oscar acceptance speech? And is it that dude on the self-help tape who sounds totally high? And is it a doomsday cult? And is it a dog saying “sausages”? And is it a small child screaming “show picture of baby rabbit swimming” at Siri?