‘Voices at the End’ presents an evening of contemporary dance and contemporary music featuring ŻfinMalta – Malta’s national dance company. The highlight of the programme is a new choreography by the artistic director of ŻfinMalta, Paolo Mangiola, based on the music with the same title by composer John Psathas from New Zealand. The music, set in 5 movements for piano and digital audio, will be performed live. The first part of the programme presents three trios for clarinet, violin and piano by Scott McAllister, Karl Fiorini and Makiko Kinsohita. ‘Twisting Landscapes’ by Makiko Kinsohita is also choreographed by Paolo Mangiola for ŻfinMalta, originally created as a video-dance project for the 2021 edition of the Malta International Arts Festival.

Programme

Scott McAllister 

Funk

Makiko Kinsohita

Twisting Landscapes | ŻfinMalta – choreography by Paolo Mangiola

i. Movement I

ii. Movement II

iii. Movement III

Karl Fiorini

Trio Lamina

Intermission

John Psathas

Voices at the End

Żfin Malta - choreography by Paolo Mangiola

i. Prologue Mitote

ii. Part 1 Business as Usual

iii. Part 2 The Great Unravelling

iv. Part 3 The Great Turning

v. Epilogue Chrysalis

Programme Notes

Funk - Scott McAllister (2005)

for clarinet, violin and piano

Funk by Scott McAllister is a composition for clarinet, violin, and piano written by Scott McAllister in 2005. It was the second piece the American composer created for the Strata Trio, and one of the first following his divorce from his first wife. The tribulations the composer was going through at the time played a key role in the formation of this composition, with the three instruments representing the three disillusioned parties in the proceedings: the clarinet represents McAllister, the violin represents the ex-wife, and the piano represents the lawyer. As McAllister once said that Funk is “a state of mind” and this can be seen from the way the piece evolves. Funk opens with the piano playing a solo rhythmic ostinato, with the violin joining in the fifth bar to voice its disagreement. The clarinet finally pipes up at the next measure, and all three instruments continue to create dissonance until they finally agree on a single tempo.

Twisting Landscapes - Makiko Kinoshita (2004)

for clarinet, violin and piano

Twisting Landscapes is a chamber work for clarinet, violin, and piano written by Japanese Composer Makiko Kinoshita in 2004. Taking around 16 minutes to complete, the composition has three movements, which follow a rhythmic-atmospheric-rhythmic structure. Kinoshita, who studied composition at the Tokyo University of the Arts, is particularly renowned for this type of choral music, however, she has also written pieces for individual instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra. On top of Twisting Landscapes, other notable works by the composer are Gothic (for wind band), Circuit of Dream (piano suite), and The Trembling Moon (for percussion ensemble), the latter of which is also part of her official discography made up of four albums.

Trio Lamina – Karl Fiorini (2002)

for clarinet, violin and piano

Lamina in the sense of foil, veneer, leaf, layer – was Fiorini’s first attempt towards consolidating cogent new dimensions of structure and harmony, crafting a whole out of successive smaller sections. It co-won the 2004 Alea III International Composition Competition, University of Boston. Though cast in one movement, its six sub-sections display evident traits of Bartókian arch form, its penultimate lento – ‘a nocturnal quasi-tenebrous scene’ with slow moving Mussorgskian chords and octaves on the piano (quasi ‘con mortuis in lingua mortua’) preceded by a transitioning cadenza for clarinet offset by violin double-note tremoli and glissandi – hinting further at the Hungarian’s ‘night music’ manner. The macrostructure follows a fast–slow– fast scheme, the ‘finale’ in the guise of a modified, temporally more dynamic reflection of incidents in the first part. Pondering, juxtaposing and mutating material, braiding mosaics of emotion, contribute to its persona.

Voices at the End – John Psathas (2018)

for solo piano and digital audio

Voices at the End was originally inspired by the film Planetary. In this film, author and environmental activist Joanna Macy suggested there are three stories that we have to choose from, to make sense of our lives now, to make sense of our world. The first story that we could see and accept as reality is Business as Usual. All we need to do is keep growing our economy. We could call that the industrial growth society.

But there's a second story which is seen and accepted as the reality by the scientists and the activists. These are the people who lift back the carpet and look under the rug of Business as Usual and see what it's costing us. And it's costing us the world. We call that story The Great Unravelling. Unravelling is what biological and ecological and organic systems do as diversity is lost.  They shred.

That's not the end of the story though, because there's a third narrative, another lens through which we can choose to see. And that is that a revolution is taking place. A transition. From the industrial growth society to a life sustaining society. And it's taking many forms, this third story, The Great Turning. It's our story of survival and it’s got huge evolutionary pressures behind it. After all, the story of evolution is everybody's autobiography.

These three stories - Business as Usual, The Great Unravelling, and The Great Turning, form the three parts of Voices at the End.

Biographies

ŻfinMalta

Photo: Kurt Paris

ŻfinMalta National Dance Company is a talented and adaptable dance ensemble, with a diversity of creative voices reflecting the many influences that are part of today’s Malta. Established in 2014, the company has quickly become one of the country’s leading Public Cultural Organisations, at the forefront of Malta’s contemporary art scene. During this time, the company has pioneered fresh thinking about contemporary dance in the Maltese Islands and raised the profile of dance exponentially. We work with the best dancers and choreographers from Malta and around the globe to create productions that are bold and current and of a world-class standard. ŻfinMalta provides a space for artists to develop and take risks, contributing to an open and expansive dance ecology in Malta and internationally, and providing opportunities for aspiring, emerging and established dance professionals to realise their potential.

Website: www.zfinmalta.org/ 

Paolo Mangiola

Paolo Mangiola, Artistic Director Paolo Mangiola is a choreographer, dance educator and performer working within ballet and contemporary dance practices. Operating in the interstices between codified dance and ordinary movement, Paolo is interested in exploring this relationship in the context of our interconnected society, drawing inspiration from various artistic sources, the web, and emerging movements. As a performer Paolo has collaborated with, and danced for, artists and choreographers including Wayne McGregor, Deborah Hay, Martin Creed, and Mauro Bigonzetti. Paolo has created works for the Royal Ballet, Tanztheater Nürnberg, Aterballetto, Szczecin Opera Ballet and Balletto di Roma. He attained a Masters in Choreography at The Place, London, and designed the programme for the Contemporary Dance Department, Scuola del Balletto di Roma. Paolo was appointed resident choreographer at Balletto di Roma in 2015, where he remained for three seasons. Since 2017 he has been Artistic Director of ŻfinMalta, Malta’s national dance company.

Godfrey Mifsud

Godfrey Mifsud is considered to be one of Malta’s most refined solo and chamber musicians. He started his musical studies in Malta at an early age under Ronnie Debattista and furthered his clarinet studies in the UK with British clarinet virtuoso David Campbell while participating in master classes with international soloists Andrew Marriner, Philippe Cuper, Reinhard Wieser and Howard Klug. Godfrey has performed as soloist locally and internationally with various orchestras including the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Camerata Con Cor(d)e, Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Berne Youth Symphony Orchestra, Christchurch Wind Orchestra and is also featured as a recording artist on Meridian Records and Divine Art (UK).He is sought after as a versatile musician, performs with various groups and has been a member of the Cosmos Wind Ensemble for the last decade. 

Nadine Galea

Award winning, multi-genre violinist Nadine Galea has performed for the late Queen Elizabeth II, the Royal Family & all political World Leaders at Buckingham Palace broadcasted live on BBC 2. She’s performed private house concerts for pop star Madonna and Tim Berners Lee and has been flown to Cannes by Will.i.am for a special star-studded event. She’s also performed for Judi Dench, Sir David Frederick Attenborough and Cameron Mackintosh amongst others. Her recordings have been featured on Netflix’s Bridgerton, Classic FM, BBC Radio London & SKY TV. She performed on TV shows such as the X-factor UK and alongside artists such as Leona Lewis and Ronan Keating. Nadine performed Ravel’s virtuoso piece Tzigane to a full house as a soloist accompanied by the United Nations Orchestra for Europe Day at the Victoria Hall in Geneva. 

Website: nadinegalea.com/

Tricia Dawn Williams

Born in Malta, of Irish and Welsh descent, Tricia Dawn Williams is committed to contemporary music, multimedia and new technologies. Her concerts transform the piano recital into an interdisciplinary performance featuring video-art, electronic music and extended piano technique. As a dedicated promoter of new music, Williams has commissioned, premiered and recorded numerous works. Williams’ international performances include: Les Invalides (Paris, France), Béla Bartόk Memorial House (Budapest, Hungary), Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Dusseldorf, Germany), The Royal Danish Theatre (Copenhagen, Denmark), Den Jyske Opera (Aarhus, Denmark), Arena New Music Festival (Riga, Latvia), European Capital of Culture (Pafos, Cyprus), Festival International de Carthage (Tunis, Tunisia), John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts (Washington DC, USA), Cape Town Festival (Cape Town, South Africa) and Riverside Theatre (Sydney, Australia). 

Website: triciadawnwilliams.com/

Credits

Clarinet - Godfrey Mifsud

Violin - Nadine Galea

Piano - Tricia Dawn Williams

Piano backing track for Voices at the End - Dawn Hardwick

Choreographer - Paolo Mangiola

Dancers - Marti Blanco Romeu, Pearl Calleja, Lidia Caricasole, Noemi Coin Andreotti, Lotte La Haye, Jérémie Lafon, Keith Micallef, Matteo Real, Simon Riccardi-Zani, Benjamin Spiteri, Amber Van Veen

In collaboration with ŻfinMalta