In 1992 I went around the world with a microphone and a tape recorder to collect the sound of the human voice from all over the planet. I composed Grains of Voices with some but not all the voices I had recorded. That piece was a huge mix where different voices from different places were blending together.

Since then I felt that I wanted to give a chance to some of those voices that never made it into Grains of Voices. I also wanted to make a piece where each voice would act on its own without blending with others. It was with the 2008 Giga-Hertz-Award Special Prize that I finally found both the opportunity and the perfect circumstances to create such a piece.

ReVoiced is based on four different voices going from South to North of the planet. The first one being an aboriginal from Bathurst Island outside the North coast of Australia, the second a Russian woman singing a folk melody, the third a Katakali singer from New Delhi (India) and finally a Nåjd (a kind of shaman) from Lapponia in the very north of Sweden chanting a so-called jojk. All the sounds in each movement are based on and derived exclusively from the voice of that very same movement, the only exception being the strong percussive sound at the end of the last movement.

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ReVoiced was realized in 2009 with the 43-channel Klangdome of the ZKM_Kubus of the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany) and premiered on November 28, 2009 in the ZKM_Kubus (Karlsruhe, Germany). The piece was commissioned by ZKM. Thanks to Howard Brookes (recording of Natalja singing the Russian melody) and Per-Anders Hübner (recording of the shaman from Lapponia).

Premiere

• November 28, 2009, Concert, ZKM_Kubus, Karlsruhe (Baden-Württemberg, Germany)