Renowned sonic arts duo Soundwalk Collective kicks off their “Transmissions” series with the first-ever live performance of their score to Laura Poitras’s Golden Lion-winning documentary film, “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” about internationally acclaimed photographer, artist and activist Nan Goldin. Composed in collaboration with Zacharias Falkenberg and Johannes Malfatti, the trance-like composition echoes various styles from sacred music to modern minimalist techniques, layering choral elements that draw out lyric connections between the beautiful but anguished verse of German poet Friedrich Hölderlin and Goldin’s own life and work.
Soundwalk Collective performs the score live in the intimate inner room of the Reethaus, featuring lead vocals by Mulay, Miriam Adefris on harp, Kornelia Jamborowicz on cello, Youka Snell on viola and choral accompaniment by members of A Song for You Berlin, some of whom sang on the original recording. Light food and drinks will be served over the course of the evening and the performance will be followed by a moderated conversation between Nan Goldin and Soundwalk Collective founder Stephan Crasneanscki about the collaborative process of scoring this highly personal film.
Soundwalk Collective’s composition draws connections with the life and work of German poet Friedrich Hölderlin, who was removed from society through confinement in institutions. In his last poems, written as fragments while he was plagued by mental illness, Hölderlin renders nature, in all its fragility and ephemerality. Similar themes merge in Laura’s portrait of Goldin, whose life was profoundly marked by her sister’s depression and suicide, and serve as an inspiration for the composition of the choral songs and cantus within the soundtrack.
Through the repetition of words and layering of voices, the lyric scansion operates like a language possessed, echoing various styles from sacred music to modern minimalist techniques. Following this same pattern, the scored music produces a trance that oscillates between grace and madness. The music is characterized by quivering voices and swells, de-tuning and lingering, shifting around the surreal and interwoven with excerpts of Goldin’s direct narration. As in light going through a prism: music may have a slightly different meaning for each listener, thus creating a spectrum of musical experience, similar to a rainbow of light.