ELLEN ARKBRO (SE)
Residency period: May-July 2023
During my residency, I composed new music for meantone organ in the church in La-Tour-de-Peilz. Some of this work is a continuation of something I started exploring some years ago: sustained complex harmonicities that blend with the space in a specific way and highlights the spatial qualities of harmonic sound. Some of these sounds were recorded and will eventually be published in the future. As well as spending a lot of time in the sound studio working on pieces that I recorded in the spring before coming to La Becque, I also started working on an extended organ-only version of my piece For Organ and Brass. It felt inspiring to return to this piece and reimagine it.
I also spent time in the library working on a text about phenomenology of sound and many late evenings in the ceramic studio finding ways to translate my interest in sonic texturality into the materials of clay and glazes. Some of the pieces I produced were displayed in the library during the Open Studios Summer along with a series of chords I designed for the space.
At La Becque, I also took the opportunity to write about my own experiences of sound, early memories of sound and I tried to describe the kind of experience I am after in my sound work.
Finally I initiated a collaboration with sound artist and fellow resident Hanne Lippard which will be presented for the first time in Stockholm in September 2023 for the September sessions festival. — Ellen Arkbro
Ellen Arkbro (born 1990) is a composer, musician and sound artist working with precision-tuned intervallic harmony. After attending Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm and upon completing a degree in electroacoustic composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Arkbro studied intonation under the tutelage of LaMonte Young, Marian Zazeela and Jung Hee Choi in New York, and Marc Sabat in Berlin. Her work includes compositions for acoustic instruments and for synthetic sound and combinations of both, as well as installation work. In all of her work, Arkbro focuses on the qualities of harmonic sound that reveal listening as an active process of creative participation, inviting the listener to gradually transform into the sound itself.
1-2: Ellen Arkbro, La Becque, 2023, photo Matthieu Croizier
3-6: Ellen Arkbro, La Tour-de-Peilz church, 2023, photo Ellen Arkbro
7: Ellen Arkbro and Hanne Lippard, La Becque, 2023, photo Ellen Arkbro
8-10: Ellen Arkbro, La Becque, 2023, photo Matthieu Croizier for Art Basel
11: Ellen Arkbro, La Becque Open Studios, 2023, photo Aurélien Haslebacher