SPECIAL EVENT
String by String by Joyce Beetuan Koh
Inspired by the glissandi passages of Greek-French composer and architect Iannis Xenakis’ 1954 orchestral work Metastasis, the string players physically move in a choreographed configuration whilst playing with an ambition to create musical and spatial depth.
Performers: Cheryl Ho, Thantakorn Lakanasirorat, Natasha Lee, Leng JiaYing, Li Jia Qi, Nadine Ng, Ryan Yee, Saenghaengfah Tosakul
About Joyce Beetuan Koh (Composer and Director)
Award-winning composer Joyce Beetuan Koh writes concert music, works in dance collaborations, and creates sound installations and multimedia productions. Underpinning her creative impulse is a fascination with architectural structures and scientific theories. Nuanced by her Asian sensitivity, the result is a language that is abstract, self-contained and never sentimental. International Piano Quarterly described her sound world as one that “engages the intellect and requires a different approach”.
Two piano works, la pierre magenta and Piano Peals, are published by the Associated Board Royal Schools of Music (UK). Her concert music is featured at international festivals notably at Biennale Musiques France, Birmingham Frontiers Festival, Singapore Arts Festival and performed by Nieuw Ensemble, Australia Song Company, Austrian Reconsil Ensemble, Singapore Ding Yi Music Company, Hungarian Symphony Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra and BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Highlights of her recent multimedia works include Sounding Body (dance-music, 2016, with Singapore Raw Moves Company), Hearing Lines (audio-visual, 2017, at Asian Computer Music Project in Seoul), Were we here? (theatre of music, 2018, with Singapore Setts Ensemble), Astrolabe (dance-film with VR, 2019, with New Zealand Good Company Arts), and Infinite Octagon (dance-film, 2021, with Singapore Arts Fission Dance Company).
Currently, she is Vice-Dean of Interdisciplinary Studies and Academic Enhancement at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), Singapore.
Soundislands: Re:Sound is a two-weekend festival accompanying Orchestral Manoeuvres that embraces different dimensions of sound and different possibilities of listening.