The White Book

35 minute orchestral song cycle commissioned by Goteborg Symfoniker, London Symphony Orchestra and Copenhagen Philharmonic composed for soprano, Barbara Hannigan. Setting text by Nobel prize winning author, Han Kang, from her novel of the same title. The work draws on Laura's practice of bodily informed vocal composition, in which the entire vocal line is composed utilising her own physical and vocal practice before the orchestration or harmony is considered. Through a process of embodiment, similar to that of an actor, Laura imagines herself as the soloist, in this case Barbara Hannigan, to ensure a vocal line that is adapted meticulously to the soloists practice and vocal quality. She also allows the emotional effects of grief to inform the vocal line, expressing sensations of longing, pain, breathlessness, fragmented thought processes amongst others. This draws on research by Bessel van Der Kolk's in The Body Keeps The Score. Professor Mary O'Connor's neuroscience research into the process of grieving impacted Laura's ability to understand her own experience of grief, and to then articulate this through The White Book. The incorporation of live electronics in this work is directly informed by Mary O’Connor’s research; how the sensation of expectation remains after a loved ones death, and the more neural pathways that are connected to the relationship you had with the individual, the longer the process of these pathways gradually learning to no longer expect. Throughout the song cycle, pitches sung by the soprano are captured by the live electronics and sustained beginning part of the orchestral texture. They become both memory of an object that was and present in their continuation to exist. The use of the Waldteuful is also a significant part of the entire cycle, with 4 sizes of the instrument incorporated. The friction and imposing sound of the Waldteuful in amongst the orchestral textures is capturing the sensation of being unable to speak and unable to catch one breath.

Context- Hans Abrahamsen's Let Me Tell You