Through minutiae explorations into the very microlevels of sound anatomy, through vocal investigations into, as well as the activation of, spatial premises and through the discovery of timbral qualities of objects, Song Circus masters an unusual audial vocabulary that expands the idea of what music can be. The Stavanger-based chamber ensemble Song Circus consists of five professional Norwegian singers, led by Liv Runesdatter, who specialise in contemporary music and improvisation. Song Circus has enduring relationships with several composers and creating artists. The ensemble has given life to an unusual and fascinating vocabulary of sound combined with rare musical precision.

For more than four years, Song Circus has collaborated with Ruben Sverre Gjertsen on his Landscape with Figures. The human voice is a central part of the instrumental palette of this project and much of the music is the result of the joint efforts of the ensemble and the composer. Landscapes with Figures is partially open in its form; the music is tremendously detailed and intricately notated and requires considerable musical and vocal technique and virtuosity. The composition stretches the limits of tonal flexibility and microtonal precision. Landscape with Figures IIa is composed for performance with eight or sixteen sound channels. As part of the process, Gjertsen studied the academic work of Wishart and Ferneyhoug, and their systems of notation and compositions.

Ole-Henrik Moe’s Persefone is an acoustic piece written for five female voices and wine glasses. It is a textural study of vocal sound, dynamics and microtonality. Moe took inspiration from Morton Feldman when he wrote Persefone and, in the first part, he stretches silence and slowness so far that any sense of a horizontal timeline dissolves into a music of state. Visit www.anatomyofsound.no for more info. The project pages works as a database with related texts, visuals and sounds. The pages will be developing continuously 2015-2018.