REPERTOIRE
"Open Form Real Time Composition"
In 2019 Castle in Time Orchestra began to perform open form concert using original and universal conducting sign languages such as "Conduction" by Butch Morris, "Rhythm and Percussion with Signs" by Santiago Vazquez and mainly "Soundpainting" by Walter Thompson, which is a multidisciplinary live composing sign language comprises more than 1500 gestures that are signed by the Soundpainter (composer) to indicate the type of material desired of the performers. The creation of the compositions are realized, by the conductor, through the parameters of each set of signed gestures.
Open form concerts allows to improvise with sound, movement, visual art, light design and more. Each concert is profoundly different from the other, and modularly fits itself to a specific space, time, content and amount of performers while providing a unique virtuoso vibrant experience.
Performed in Mumbai, Chennai and Pune in "Global Isai Festival" India, "East West Music And Dance Encounter 2020" Bangalore India, Holon Museum of design, "Love Art Do Art" festival in Jaffa, Theater Bahathaer Nataf, Almaćen Gallery and Salon Jazz festival.
"OTOTO"
OTOTO is a 1-hour piece for an orchestra playing music in a circle, creating an imaginary futuristic tribe. Composer Matan Daskal uses a sign language inspired by "Soundpainting" which creates a hybrid between dancing and conducting, allowing a live improvisation with the musicians, converting the stage into a vibrant arena with unexpected behaviors. As in the previous pieces of Castle in Time Orchestra, the computer player sends his tentacles and manipulates all the acoustic instruments during the concert-giving them a dynamic electronic timbre. OTOTO contains extraordinary virtuosity solos which bring out the individual players, alongside mass group moments of a wide and big orchestral color. The piece is breaking down the word OTOTO, as it sounds and as it's written: The "O" represents long times, the breath, the open space. The "T" represents short times, the groove, repeated rhythmic events. Like the word, the piece is divided into 5 parts: O, T, O, T, O and ends with a surprising musical dialogue with an outer-space time traveler.
It was created thanks to the generosity of Mifal Hapais and Beit Avi Chai and premiered in May 2018
"Harmonies In Time"
Harmonies in Time is a deep and full collaboration between the percussion master Trilok Gurtu and Castle in Time Orchestra. The piece researches the pre-historic in music. It has a relationship between a soloist player as an individual and the tribe. It uses Indian composition (Kaida) that was written for human voice and the Tabla instrument, and translates it to the western orchestral instruments. It uses complex polyrhythmic from Africa aside to a stormy fugue from classical Europe. It uses an improvisation language that was invented during the rehearsals as a way to communicate without words during the piece, therefore creating the music on the spot. The result are 80 minutes of an unusual collaboration between cultures and generations.
The piece is suitable for the wide audience.
Was premiered in "Mekudeshet" Festival 2017.
Performed by 24 musicians
"Castle In Time"
The debut piece of the orchestra is called after its name: "Castle in Time". Combining performance, video, movement, orchestral sound end full rhythm section the special concert was inspired by ׳The Sabbath’, the seminal 1951 work by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Heschel challenges modern human beings - religiously observant, secular and adherents of other faiths - presenting the Sabbath as “a palace in time,” a cure for our fast-paced world.
The piece was commissioned by Beit Avi Chai in 2015,
performed in numerous festivals and came out as an album.
Performed by 24 musicians
"Gee"
"Gee" is a live sound sculpture for the harpist Tal Vaknin and computer player Asaf Meidan. A sound field that allows diving into a frozen picture. The harpists play a 1-hour sequence while the harp is tuned to the Bayat Maqam (quarter tones). She has a communication language with the computer player that operates a set of effects on her that hatches from 8 speakers, moving like a thick cloud in space in a 3 dimensional way from speaker to speaker.
Was created in a residency in MASH center funded by Mifal Hapais, and premiered in Israel Festival 2017
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"Sounds of Siday: Side A / Side B"
An exciting collaboration between two of the most fascinating contemporary orchestras in Israel, dedicated to Eric Siday, the pioneer of electronic music and the inventor of the "sound logo". Siday led the transformative revolution in the American television and advertising world of the 1950-1960s when he introduced electronic sound into television opening music, logos and commercials. The two part multidisciplinary concert combines acoustic and electronic music, movement and video mapping. Under the direction of composers Matan Daskal (Castle in Time Orchestra) and Stephen Horenstein (Lab Orchestra) the orchestras delve into the the unique sound that Siday has created.
The first part (Side A) of the evening composed by Daskal comprises a sound piece that is inspired by Siday's miniatures and a soundpainting live composition in the spirit of his works. The second part (Side B), composed bu Horenstein, is inspired by sound and image (VJ) from Eric Siday's early television commercials whose mantra was "buy, buy, buy" (then synonymous with "patriotism). From a peak of intensity and saturation we move to meditative melody, including the last that Siday wrote.
Premiered at the Israel Festival 2020
The concert made possible through a generous grant from the Eric and Edith Siday Charitable Foundation (USA)
Tamoon
Tamoon is a sound platform that takes place in natural and urban spaces that explores the act of planting speakers underneath the earth. The speakers create an underground grid, from within it hatches sounds, noise, and vibrations.
The earth space invites people to move, sit or lie down, close their ear to the ground, feel it and listen to it.
Concept and composition by Daniel Grossman & Matan Daskal.
The piece was created in a residency in Shdemama, and presented in Loving Art Making Art Festival 2021