I’ve just returned from Aldeburgh where I spent the week working with accordionist Bartosz Glowacki and dancer Hanna Wroblewski. Bartosz is in residency at Aldeburgh and has used his visits there to developed a piece called De Profundis – The Voice of Three.

Described by Bartosz as “a creation of a dialogue between three contemporary forms of art: accordion music, text, and contemporary dance. The relationship between them gets stronger throughout the show with the culmination of two great works – De Profundis by Oscar Wilde and a milestone in contemporary accordion composition, De Profundis by Sofia Gubaidulina. The music and spoken word are in correspondence but not interfering with each other respecting the individual importance”.

It’s always a pleasure to spend time in the rehearsal room with gifted individuals, and I had a rather lovely week culminating in a performance of the piece in the Britten Studio at Snape Maltings. I won’t comment on how well (or not) I grappled with the spoken word elements, but Hanna has a wild grace which is both moving and profound, and Bartosz’s work is always beautiful (his playing of De Profundis by Sofia Gubaidulina is I think astounding).

The words and music:
Jaan Kaplinski (b.1941) – Through The Forest (*fragments)
Arvo Pärt (b.1935) – Pari Intervallo
Emily Holmes Coleman (1899-1974) – The Liberator
Luciano Berio (1925-2003) – Sequenza XIII
Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012) – Nothing Twice
Petri Makkonen (b.1967) – Flight Beyond The Time
Wendy Poussard (b.1943) – Like A Water Buffalo
Yuji Takahashi (b.1938) – Like A Water Buffalo
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) – De Profundis (*fragments)
Sofia Gubaidulina (b.1931) – De Profundis

Take a look at the two promo videos below produced by Dan Redding.
This piece will be touring in 2017…

Film by Dan Redding