sound compositions
Now is a Good Time for Screaming (2023)
Premiered on International Women’s Day 2023 on the 20 hour long FM broadcast “Occupy the Airwaves 23” (Phonic FM/Dreadnought)
Text and Voice: Caroline Bergvall
Sound: Una Lee
Animation: Elyssa Fagan
A Solitary to Solidary Arts Production, 2023
© Caroline Bergvall
Life of a Plant (2020)
Sound composition with visual accompaniment of interim musings on "being in one place for too long" as documented in spoken voice text and other intimate sonorities.
Premiered at SonitusLIVE x The Oram Awards Live Streaming.
as if (2020)
A contemplation on home-ness, distance and adapting to unexpected changes in life occurred by the pandemic.
Released as part of Not Going Home on Quills That Whisper.
Faràn (2020)
This work of audio storytelling depicts the fictional myth of an island (Faràn) in five monologues, conceived as an ode to the phenomenon of ‘tide’. The monologues are quasi accompanied by five pieces of music each of which takes inspiration from different seascapes created by varying states of the tide. Each composition is led by a specific imagery of sea alluded to in the respective monologue. For the storyline, I’ve drawn from diverse folklores and traditions such as Breton, Korean, Torajan and Mexican, representing some of the ways in which these cultures deal with tide and/or death.
Premiered on Radiophrenia Festival 2020.
Exhibited as Web installation in 2021.
Released as album on quills that whisper in 2022
(Artwork by Richard Davis)
Where Is (2018)
The piece, now part of Songs to Stay Awake to (2021), is ultimately a duet of a spoken voice and a double bass (performed by Simon Waters), both of which contain elements inspired by the photograph of ‘Swallows gather in a flock’ by Alexandros Kantoros. It features the poem 'The House That Stood For Happiness' by Maria Mcmanus. It is an original composition created for the project 'Sound Photography' hosted by Cities and Memory.
Read more about the piece here.
HANGOVER (2018)
A spoken word piece musicalised by experimental musician Slow Clinic (James Edward Armstrong) as part of 'All Of Us Are Medicated', a collaborative project curated by Slow Clinic. The project is supported by the Mental Health Foundation, and has been released for Mental Health Awareness Week 2018, with 100% of the proceeds being donated to the supporting charity.
She That May Be Carried On The Wind (2016)
This composition was commissioned for Mean Time, a collaborative sound art project curated by La Cosa Preziosa & Rachel Ní Chuinn. Ten women composers/sound artists were invited to create a piece of music based on the abolition of Dublin Mean Time. Read more about it here.
In October 2016, the composers came together for an improvised performance which is available to watch here.
Une Chambre Arlésienne (2015)
was conceived, composed and performed in Arles, France as part of a radio art workshop with Alessandro Bosetti at Phonurgia Nova in July 2015. It is a very personal sound piece with biographical approach, which was the main concern of the workshop itself. The piece is site-responsive through the story that it tells. The audio is a studio recording version of the performance.
Home (2014) Home is a fixed media piece
that tells a personal story in a minimal form both in sound and text.
It tries to convey a sense of intimacy and to quietly call for empathy. The field recordings used in the piece were taken in and around the city center of Belfast.
Every place is home for anyone and no one at the same time, because home is, in the end, what you carry inside and your own relationship towards that place within yourself.
Selected for ECHOES project “the stranger that is next to me”
A Backer's Noisy Pit (2013)
Composed with found sound and texts from diverse sources. Includes a collaborative homophonic translation work with composer Cem Özçelik.
Featured in OUA-EMF2017.