Works » By Title » E » ekphonesis IV [1971-III] (14:41 / 1971)

The title derives from the Greek “ekphonesis”, meaning speaking aloud. It refers to a series of pieces with the same title where the composer uses the human voice, usually implying a message with political connotations. It could be defined as a “meditation” piece, centered on human holocausts that should never have happened. Based on historical data and on Picasso's Guernica, the composition presents the visual level in a fragmentary manner, of history and real life. The electronic sounds were realised at the electronic music studio, McGill University, Montréal. Other sound materials were street sounds from New York City; the voices of the composer and his friend the painter Alejandro Puente, in a non-comprehensible conversation about Guernica; musical quotations from the composer himself and from an identifiable Schubert song.