Last Whispers was created in collaboration with

The Endangered Languages Documentation Programme
and The SOAS World Languages Institute,
SOAS, University of London

It is co-presented by UNESCO and The Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger

Last Whispers is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization

Last Whispers is an experiential, immersive work dedicated to the extinction of languages.

Last Whispers is an incantation of extinct and endangered languages. It is both a profoundly modern and a traditional choral work. The spatialized sound composition layers recordings of speech, recitatives, incantations, songs and ritual chants, with audible punctuations of sounds from nature and outer space frequencies (made audible), including gravitational waves of supernovas (dying stars) recorded by LIGO, “The Listening Ear.”

The result is a visceral, sensory immersion when experienced in any of the formats offered:  a fully immersive gallery projection, an audio video theater installation, a virtual reality experience, or a dome projection.

The impact of Last Whispers is amplified through its use of cutting edge image and sound design and technology. Visually, the audience is dropped into landscapes and symbols devoid of people, as human voices call from deep space. The immersive and spatialized sound projection (available in binaural / 54.1 / 8.1 octophonic / 7.1 / 5.1 mixes), is interpreted by the human ear as a distinct 360° soundscape. This enveloping visual and sound environment prompts the brain to perceive the voices in the piece as “present” and “real.” Whether experienced as a video, as a virtual reality, or as an immersive projection mapping render or dome or sphere, the audiences find themselves inside the artwork for 30 minutes.

VENICE ART BIENNALE

2022 Tour Launch

21 April - 25 September 2022
Co-presented by UNESCO.

Venice, Italy

3-PART SHOW:

VIRTUAL REALITY
30 minutes 

CZF (Ca’ Foscari Zattere/Cultural Flow Zone)
Zattere al Pontelungo

THE ART NIGHT
30 minutes

Last Whispers featured as large scale outdoor projection

MURAL INSTALLATION

Main courtyard of Ca’Foscari
Palazzo Ca’Giustinian
Dorsoduro 3246, Venice 

LAST WHISPERS PRESENTATION at UNESCO

Speech by Lena Herzog during the Launch of the World Atlas of Languages

18 November 2021
41st Plenary Session of
UNESCO General Conference
Paris, France

21 November 2019
Théâtre du Châtelet
Paris, France

Presented by Le Festival d’Automne and Théâtre de la Ville
in collaboration with UNESCO

AV Immersive Oratorio Installation (45 min)

20 November - 1 December 2019
IDFA 2019
Amsterdam

VR (7 min)

31 October 2019
Los Pinos Presidential Palace
Mexico City, Mexico

AV Immersive Oratorio Installation (45 min)

21 October 2019
DTLA Film Festival Dome Film Series
Los Angeles, CA

VR (7 min)

17-30 October 2019 
43rd São Paulo IFF Realidade Virtual
São Paulo, Brazil

VR (7 min)

AV Immersive Oratorio Installation (45 min)

October 14-18 2019
SFIFF – Santa Fe International Film Festival Virtual Cinema
Santa Fe, New Mexico

VR (7 min)

15 October 2019—4 January 2020
George Eastman Museum
Rochester, NY

AV Immersive Oratorio Installation (45 min)

7-18 October 2019
Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinéma
Montréal, Québec

VR (7 min)

PRIX CINÉMA VR (FORMERLY PRIX IMMERSION) - FNC EXPLORE
Best virtual reality 360 film

28 September 2019
Latino Media Fest
Los Angeles, CA

VR (7 min)

27 September - 13 October 2019
New York Film Festival Convergence Program
New York, New York

VR (7 min)

7-22 September 2019
The REACH at the Kennedy Center
Washington, DC

VR (7 min)

* Official selection and special presentation at the REACH Opening Festival

5-9 September 2019
World XR Forum
Crans-Montana, Switzerland

VR (7 min)

24-27 June 2019
SandBox Immersive Festival
Qingdao, China

VR (7 min)

17 June 2019
Games 4 Change Immersive Cinema

New York, New York

VR (7 min)

15 June 2019
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

VR (7 min)
+ Conversation with LACMA Director Michael Govan

14 June 2019
Ford Theater
Los Angeles, CA

Co-presented by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and by the Natural History Museum (NHM)

AV Immersive Oratorio Installation (45 min) and Conversation with Paul Holdengräber and panel

5 - 13 June 2019
VR HAMBURG
Hamburg, Germany

VR (7 min)

26-28 April 2019
EarthX Virtual Cinema
Dallas, Texas

VR (7 min)

8-12 April 2019
WSIS Forum 2019
Geneva, Switzerland

VR (7 min)

* Official selection and special presentation at the World VR Forum

8-17 March, 2019
South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival

Austin, TX

VR (7 min)

* Official Selection in competition at the Virtual Cinema Program

24 February 2019
The Kennedy Center and The Smithsonian
Terrace Theater (Millennium Stage Program)
Washington, DC

AV Immersive Oratorio Installation (45 min) & VR (7 min)

25-29 January, 2019
Sundance Film Festival

Park City, Utah

PREMIERE of the VR (7 min)

Official selection, New Frontier Program

13 November 2016
Museum Fünf Kontinente München
Munich, Germany

Presented by Museum Fünf Kontinente, SOAS University of London & Literaturfest München

AV Immersive Oratorio Installation (45 min)

21-23 October 2016
PREMIERE
The British Museum
London

Presented by The British Museum, SOAS University of London & Bloomsbury Festival

AV Immersive Oratorio Installation (45 min)

LANGUAGES

Below are the languages featured in Last Whispers, which were donated by last speakers, linguists, language activists and language archives. This collection of recordings was made in collaboration with the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme and the SOAS World Languages Institute, SOAS, University of London.

Ahom
India
Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC)
Collector: Stephen Morey
Speaker: Tileshwar Mohan

Ainu
Japan
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collectors: Anna Bugaeva and Hiroshi Nakagawa
Speaker: Mrs. Kimi Kimura

Ayoreo
Paraguay
Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages
Collector: Anna Luisa Daigneault
Speakers: Iyagai Catalino Picanerai, Pehe Picanerai

Bathari
Oman
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collector: Miranda Morris
Speakers:
Maḥmūd Mšaʕfi Musallim Al Mashrami Al Baṭḥari, Sowma Zifena Musallim Al Mashrami Al Baṭḥari, Faraḥ Mšaʕfi Musallim Al Mashrami Al Baṭḥari, ʕᾹmir Māgid Suleyyim Al Mḥabši Al Baṭḥari, Nasra Salim Shemlān Al Mḥabši Al Baṭḥari, Salim Muḥammad Saqr Al Mashrami Al Baṭḥari, Rubeyyaʕ Adahaba Suleyyim al-Mamṭari Al Baṭḥari, Bakhayyit Saʕad Saḳr Al Mashrami Al Baṭḥari, Lḥabāb Hamūd Salim Al Mashrami Al Baṭḥari, Saʕad Qāsim Aṭali Al Mamṭari Al Baṭḥari, Salīma Saqr Laġafēli Al Mašarmi Al Baṭḥari

Central Balsas Nahuatl
Mexico
Collector: Jonathan D. Amith
Speakers: Clemente Baltazar, Eugenio Castro, Valentina Reyes Damian, Silvestre Pantaleón, Mundo Ramírez

Chamacoco (Ishir Ibitoso)
Paraguay
Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages
Collector: Anna Luisa Daigneault
Speakers: Baaso, Crispulo Martinez (Kafotei), Agna Peralta

Dalabon
Australia
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collector: Maïa Ponsonnet
Speaker: Maggie Tukumba

Duoxu
China
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collectors: Katia Chirkova, Zhengkang Han, Dehe Wang, Xiaowen Yuan
Speakers: Wenming Ma, Decai Wu, Denglian Wu, Rongfu Wu, Zhengmei Wu

Enxlet Norte
Paraguay
Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages
Collector: Anna Luisa Daigneault
Speaker: Silvestre Martinez

Great Andamanese
India
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collector: Anvita Abbi
Speakers: Boa Sr., Buro, Ilfe, Pao Buddha

Ikaan
Nigeria
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collector: Sophie Salffner
Speakers: Lawrence Abiola, Comfort Adedeji, Dignes Adedeji, Hannah Adedeji, Richard Bamidele Adedeji, Fred Adekanye, Lydia Adekanye, William Adekanye, Mayowa Adekunbi, Ruth Adeoba, Juliana Adeyanju, Maybelle Adeyanju, Omojola Baale, Dorcas Babalola, Simeon Olaitan Balobun, Dorcas Balogun, Asya Gefter, Thomas Obadau, Janet Obanobi, Adesonmi Obaude, Bola Ruth Oloyo

Ingrian
Russia
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR) &
Karelian Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Collectors: Fedor Rozhanskiy, Elena Markus, Enn Ernits, Eino Kiuru, Elina Kylmäsuu, Terttu Koski
Speakers: Ekaterina Andreyevna Aleksandrova, Zinaida Antonovna Dmitriyeva, Aleksandra Mikhaylovna Efimov, Konstantin Efimov, Praskovya Milhaylovna Fedorova, Fekla Mikhaylovna Gerasimova, Evdokiya Isayeva, Evgokiya Lukinichna Ivanova, Tatyana Ignatyevna Ivanova, Akulina Mikhaylovna Kirilova, Nikolay Mikhaylov, Mariya Elizarovna Nikitina, Feodosiya Nikitichna Petrova, Evdokiya Filippovna Rodionova, Galina Ivanovna Samsonova, Anna Vasilyevna Stepanova, Anna Ivanovna Trofimova, Evgeniya Emelyanovna Vasilyeva, Matrena Dmitriyevna Vasilyeva, Mariya Volosanova, Anna Zolotova

Ixcatec
Mexico
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collectors: Denis Costaouec & Michael Swanton
Depositors: Denis Costaouec & Michael Swanton
Speakers: Juliana Salazar Bautista, Lirio Salazar Gutiérrez, María Patrocina Salazar Gutiérrez, Pedro Salazar Gutiérrez, Cipriano Ramírez Guzmán, Rufina Álvarez Robles

Ju|’hoan
Namibia
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collector: Megan Biesele
Speakers:|Ai!ae, ǁ’Angsa |’Angn!ao, |Asa ǁXamte, !Kaia G|aeku, Kaqece ǁ’Ao, |Kunta, N!aq’e, Nǁao Kxao, Sagǁai

Kotiria (Wanano)
Brazil and Colombia
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR) & Kotiria Linguistic and Cultural Archive
Collector: Kristine Stenzel
Speakers: Emilia Trindade Cabral, Helena Cabral, Mateus Trindade Cabral, Ricardo Trindade Cabral, Emilia Melo

Koyukon
USA
Alaska Native Language Archive
Speaker: Henry Titus
Courtesy of Allen and Anne Titus

Laklãnõ Xokleng
Brazil
The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA)
Collector: Greg Urban
Speakers: Vãjẽky Téy, Vãjẽky Paté, Dil tõ vo
Courtesy of: Nanblá Gakran

Light Warlpiri
Australia
The Language Archive, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Collector: Carmel O’Shannessy
Speakers: the children of Lajamanu

Los Capomos Mayo
Mexico
The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA)
Collector: Ray Freeze
Depositor: Yolanda Lastra
Courtesy of Joshua Freeze

Mani
Samu/Samou region of Sierra Leone/Guinea
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collector: Tucker Childs
Speakers: Momo Kaka Bangoura, Amara Camara, Kaba Camara, Yaaye Camara, Mahawa Conté

Manx
UK Manx
UK
Culture Vannin
Collector: Brian Stowell
Speaker: Ned Maddrell

Mbya Guarani
Paraguay
Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages
Collector: Anna Luisa Daigneault

Nǁng
South Africa
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collectors: Tom Güldemann, Martina Ernszt, Sven Siegmund & Alena Witzlack-Makarevich
Project: A Text Documentation of Nǀuu
Speakers: Hannie Koerant, Andries Olyn, ǀUna Rooi, Griet Seekoei

Nafsan (South Efate)
Vanuatu
Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC)
Collector: Nick Thieberger
Speakers: Harris Takau and John Kalfau

Nivkh
Russia
Sound Materials of the Nivkh Language
Collector: Hidetoshi Shiraishi (Sapporo Gakuin University)
Speakers: Konstantin Iakovlevich Agniun, Valentina Fedorovna Akilyak-Ivanova, Vera Eremeevna Khejn, Olga Anatol’evna Nyavan, Natalia Demianovna Vorbon

Olekha
Bhutan
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collector: Gwendolyn Hyslop
Speakers: Chey Go Chelong, Kuenga, Nakari, Singye

Ongota
Ethiopia
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collector: Graziano Savà
Speakers: Maale Goda, Gombo Karo, Dula K’awla, Geeda K’awla, Guayo Kurayo, Erre Sagane, Gename Wa’do

Paunaka
Bolivia
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collectors: Swintha Danielsen, Lena Terhart, Federico Villalta
Speakers: María Cuasase, Pedro Pinto, Juana Supepí, Miguel Supepí

Pite Saami
Sweden
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collector: Joshua Wilbur
Speakers: Anders-Erling Fjällås, Elsy Rankvist, Henning Rankvist, Tage Rankvist, Dagny Skaile, Per-Allan Steggo

Qaqet
Papua New Guinea
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR) and Language Archive Cologne at the University of Cologne
Collector: Birgit Hellwig
Speakers: Paul Alin, Rudolf Arum, David Landi, Joyce Laniat, Henry Lingisaqa, Francis Murum, Lucy Nguingi, Justin Samurl, Dorothy Singan, Marcela Tangil

Sadu
China
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collectors: Xianming Xu & Bibo Bai
Speakers: Lanzhen Li, Fenqin Li

Selk’nam (Ona)
Argentina
Selk’nam (Ona) Chants of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, FW04176
Collector: Anne Chapman
Speaker: Lola Kiepja
Courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (p) (c) 1972, used by permission.

Selkup
Russia
Laboratory for Computational Lexicography, Research Computing Center, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Collectors: Olga Kazakevich & Leonid Zakharov
Speaker: Rodion Sergeevich Kubolev

Sumtu (Sone Tu)
Myanmar
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collector: Mai Ni Ni Aung
Speakers: U Lo Htaung, U Hla Sein, U Bo Thar, U Ni Tun

Surel
Nepal
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collector: Dörte Borchers
Speakers: Junkimaya Surel, Tikamaya Surel, Tirtha Bahadur Surel

Tehuelche
Argentina
The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA)
Collector: Jorge Suárez
Depositor: Yolanda Lastra
Speakers: Andrés Carminatti, Carmen Carminatti, Margarita Pocón de Manco, Ana Montenegro de Yebes

Trung (Dulong)
China
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collector: Ross Perlin
Speakers: Mon Jisong, Pung Svr, Wang Jici

Warlpiri
Australia
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collector: Carmel O’Shannessy
Speakers: Teddy Morrison Jupurrurla and the children of Lajamanu

Yanesha
Peru
Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages
Collector: Anna Luisa Daigneault
Speakers: Christina Bautista, Justina Quinchuya

Yauyos Quechua
Peru
The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA)
Collector: Aviva Shimelman
Speakers: Victorina Aguado, Octavia Arco, Bautista Cárdenas, Macedonia Centeno, Delfina Chullunkuy, Soylita Chullunkuy, Ninfa Flores, Cecilia Guerra, Juana Huari, Soylita Huari, Saturnina M., Esther Madueño, Margarita Madueño, Lucia Pariunám Martínez, Santa Ellu Martínez, Genoveva Rodríguez, Lucía Rodríguez,, Leona Wamán, Urbana Yauri

Yoloxóchitl Mixtec
Mexico
Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London (ELAR)
Collector: Jonathan D. Amith
Speakers: Constantino Teodoro Bautista, Soledad García Bautista, Estela Santiago Castillo, Alberto Prisciliano Federico, Mario Salazar Felipe, Martín Salazar Felipe, Rey Castillo García, Martín Severiano Germán, Marcelina Encarnacion Gertrudis, Maximiliano Francisco Gonzalez, Fernando Niño Leonardo, Alfonso García Reyes, Victorino Ramos Rómulo, Lamberto García Santiago, Zoila Guadalupe Sierra, Maximino Meza Teodoro, Santa Cruz Tiburcio

Lena Herzog
on the origins of the project

Last Whispers, Oratorio for Vanishing Voices, Collapsing Universes, and a Falling Tree

At the age of six I decided to learn English so that I could understand a puzzle in a Sherlock Holmes story. I had to know how the detective had decoded a death threat to his client’s wife in The Adventure of the Dancing Men. The key to that puzzle was the recognition of the recurring definite article “the”—a mysterious notion to me then since articles do not exist in Russian. I grew up in the Urals, on the western border of Siberia, where very few people spoke foreign languages. I picked up Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original in English, along with a dictionary and a grammar text book, and struggled through the entire book line by line. Later, also prompted by the desire to read literature in the original, I studied French and Spanish and, worked as a proof-reader at a printing press in Saint Petersburg, next to the compositors that were busily nestling letters into words, words into sentences, and sentences into novels at a staggering speed, throwing proofs over to my table like hot bread. So it made sense to me that when I went to Saint Petersburg University, the door plaque of my faculty read “philology” φιλολογία—including the original Greek, which means “love of the word.” However, all my plans to become a Russian novelist were upended by a complete linguistic dislocation to American English at age twenty, when I moved to the United States. The sense of personal language loss was concrete and overwhelming, alerting me to a far more universal and dire fate for most languages.

The idea for a project specifically on the mass extinction of languages came to me more than two decades ago. My old failed 2003 Guggenheim application was titled “Vanishing Cultures” and was at first, in part, a photographic project. I’d planned to take large-format portraits of the last speakers of various languages and place them in a room filled with their whispering voices. The concept of sounding vanished voices by broadcasting them as a muffled chorus was already central and clearly articulated in my description of the project back then.

I realized that indigenous communities give up their languages and switch to dominant ones under pressure from the forces of globalization. My next natural iteration of this idea involved shedding the images of the speakers and having only voices in a forest. When a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? This old philosophical trope, the basic epistemological exercise, seemed handy. What is our sense of the unobserved, unheard worlds? I have come to think of this old exercise as one in empathy: Does it matter that trees and universes collapse all around us? Somewhere, between our obliviousness to others and our own inevitable oblivion, rest the scales of some brutal justice.

My team and I began amassing a giant library of recordings of extinct and endangered languages on loan from international archives, working closely with many collections, linguists, and anthropologists in the field. Our main collaborator was the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme, a project of SOAS University of London that is headed by Mandana Seyfeddinipur. When I went through their archives online, I realized there would be no point in just “stacking” languages back-to-back to form a single piece. Because these recordings were already public, generously so, it would have been possible to perform this kind of compilation just by clicking “next” on their website, and that would have been too obvious a gesture for the work I had in mind.

While working in my studio and darkroom, I created a setup that randomly played thousands of these recordings, one after another. I marked those that felt right for the oratorio I was planning and began narrowing down the library. The extraordinary researcher Theresa Schwartzman, in Los Angeles, and her counterpart in London, Eveling Villa, began reaching out to archives, linguists, and indigenous communities (when this was possible) to obtain rights and permissions for the recordings. Sometimes there was no community to reach. We went beyond the letter of the law, which held that the copyright resided with the linguists and the archives, and tried to reach those who claimed heritage to the language. Sometimes last speakers changed their minds, turning us down mid-composition and mid-film, and we had to redo the work from scratch, rescore and rethink. Each case had a story, most often a tragic one. We began to publish some of them on our website.

Every dialogue with a linguist, no matter how banal, brought insight. The professionals who travel and live among these last speakers are the unsung heroes in this story; they are the ones who collect, preserve, and help revitalize endangered languages. In my dealings with them, they were the advocates for the last speakers’ rights. One might think that they would number enough to form an army, but there are barely enough of them for a battalion. Most work alongside volunteers and language enthusiasts. And all of them, at least those that I have met, are on the side of indigenous peoples. To put it in espionage terms, linguists of endangered languages almost always “go native.” They are the ones who hear the trees falling in the forest. Our long list of credits names both the speakers and the linguists—meticulously.

The polyphonic global chorus that I heard had the makings of an astonishing oratorio, and to bring it into a public space beyond the form of the archive, I needed music and imagery that would reveal it in a condensed form. This form had to be invented organically; it had to come from the recordings, from the voices themselves.

Marco Capalbo and Mark Mangini, who work fluidly in both sound design and composition, joined the team, and we began to shape the oratorio from our already-narrowed library. My concept was multilayered and concrete: it included the use of sounds of Russian bells, forest noises, wind, interpreted gravitational waves from outer space registered by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (a.k.a. “the Listening Ear”), and the specific parameters for the source library itself. In my first brainstorming session about the work, I wrote to Marco and Mark:

What is the balance of the piece? What holds it together?

The “founding idea” of making the work is based on the recordings of languages that had already vanished or are well on their way to extinction. The parameters within which the selection was made for the source library—I have defined. This is clearly a glue as the overall idea and basic building blocks. … Using cosmic sounds of the universe within the composition expands the arc. Gives us “eternal” time. … I really love the opening with the bell. The end will have to be a giant chorus that builds and builds and then abruptly vanishes—in an exhale.

Shifting from fragmentation to a lyrical cradling of the voices, then back to fragmentation, and ending with a finale of interwoven harmony and dissonance were key to the piece I was constructing with my team.

Listening to the sounds of the voices and the first sketches by Marco and Mark, the photographer Tomas van Houtryve and I mapped a precise choreography of drone footage. Animator Amanda Tasse and I decided to create a new topography for the world that would have no “real” geography. We collected NASA images of hurricanes, cut out their edges, and sewed them together, forming something like a digital quilt to cover the earth. I thought that the edges of these vortices textured the continents and islands well, lighting the globe like a strange marble.

There is lamentation and melancholy in the oratorio. How can it be otherwise? And yet it is not a requiem—it is an invocation of languages that have gone extinct and an incantation of those that are endangered. I myself got addicted to these vanishing voices. I listen to them all the time now. They remind me that despite the deafening noise of our own voices, we are floating on an ocean filled with the silence of others.

Notes on compositions
by Mark Mangini

I felt that the best way to honor and respect the last speakers was to find the most compelling expressions of their individual languages and bring them to life in a modern, high-fidelity way. After combing through hundreds of hours of interviews, songs and chants, I selected 30 recordings that moved me the most and worked to bring them to life through the use of underscore, montage, and sound design. Though most of these archival recordings were captured monaurally and are of questionable fidelity, we designed an octophonic speaker system so to reproduce the recordings as immersively and experientially as possible. To show off this immersive space, I built an octophonic virtual sound environment in the studio and placed the last speakers within it. I felt that they should live in a world of sound that is as modern as the one we ourselves experience, thereby presenting their stories and songs in as lifelike a fashion as possible.

Notes on ORA
by Marco Capalbo

ORA—the root of many words: the mouth, speaking, prayer, aura, a soft wind or breeze, and speech is of course connected to breath, and so to life itself. So here Ora is perhaps a breathing spoken prayer.

I used multiple processes in the composition of ORA. I generated sounds through purely electronic means, and I modulated natural sounds using a variety of techniques. The sound layers were arrayed in an eight-by-eight circle, then projected into eight discrete loudspeaker channels, like the rings of some kind of tree, each one bringing us closer to the center. Each loudspeaker is treated as an independent sound source, and sounds are projected and travel through the space in a variety of ways. All the sound was created more or less “from scratch” in a computer-programming language called CSound.

The sounds follow a progression from the cosmic-universal to the natural, the spoken to the sung, the sustained (cello harmonics) to the resonating (bells). The universal sounds are the most chaotic, the bells the most regular. Each of these six elements has its own rhythm, composed in sixfold counterpoint. Each has its solo moment, with the rhythmic proportions reflected in the large and the small. Voices were placed within a time structure in which they could sing and speak, together, alone, in synchronized groups and chaotic masses. I treated the different languages equally, not picking favorites. To this end, I drew upon a large pool of sound files—some 400 in all. The listener is guided into a sonic space where all the words and songs and cries and chants play within a forest of sound, free of meaning, in some mysterious vastness. While few listeners—and even fewer as time goes on—will grasp semantic meaning from the words, everything has the sound of humanness. We recognize the utterances of our brothers and sisters, as well as our shared ability to form sounds to communicate with each other. A variety of bell sounds toll a sixfold sequence of differently timed repetitions. Six bells start together, and they are one beat away from repeating at the very end of the piece, as each bell follows the other in sequence. So, if the piece were extended, the whole cycle would begin again, another breath in some great oscillation.