Exquisitely simple, but endlessly deep. Andy Gill. The Independent
Meditative atmospheres, harmonic refinement, and an equilibrium between sound, resonance and silence. Stefano Russomanno. ABC Cultural
Delicate and subtle, with high poetic imagination. Jonathan Harvey
News
Outstanding performer: Bessie Award to PeiJu Chien-Pott PeiJu Chien-Pott, dance. Kakizakai Kaoru, shakuhachi. Neopercusión, percussion
Neu Records
11 October 2017
Ekstasis
Martha Graham's lost 1933 solo reimagined by Virginie Mecene with music by Ramon Humet
PeiJu Chien-Pott, principal dancer of the Martha Graham Dance Company, will premiere EKSTASIS in New York City, a Martha Graham's lost 1933 solo reimagined by Virginie Mecene with music by Ramon Humet. Mecene choosed Humet’s Interlude VII from “Homenaje a Martha Graham” for this thrilling project.
In a 1980 interview about EKSTASIS, Martha Graham said that she was experimenting with the thrust of the pelvis. This lead her to explore “a cycle of distortion” that she found deeply meaningful. “Before Ekstasis, I had been using a more static form, trying to find a ritualistic working of the body,” she concluded.
EKSTASIS contains the initial discovery that gave birth to Martha Graham’s technique, based on the center of the body, the pelvis. Mecene envisioned a series of movements deeply connected to the earth, with slow departure as well as moments of ekstasis, all committed to the moment. Humet’s music organically fit with Mecene’s choreography, being both intriguing, deep, mysterious, earthy, sacred, and transporting.
EKSTASIS will be featured in the Joyce Theater as part of the Martha Graham Dance Company New York Season, celebrating its 90th birthday. Sessions at the Joyce Theater (New York): February 14, 16, 19, 24 and 26.
Llum (Light) is an invitation to take a journey inward, to travel to the immense space which is, precisely, what makes us human, to that silent place which exists within us, to the deep wellspring that is the birthplace of everything, to the bright sapling of Peace; to the infinite, which announces the Mystery; to the gift of Life, Peace and Love. The texts which accompany each of the seven stages of this inner pilgrimage were written by my friend Vicenç Santamaria, a monk from the monastery of Monserrat. The words have been set to music for a variety of choral formations - mixed choir, female voice choir, double choir -, and for different soloists. All the pieces are composed to be sung a cappella, and in Luminous Crumbs crotales and bar chimes have been added.
Llum (2013-2016)
I. Tanca els ulls (Close Your Eyes), for female voice choir
II. Camina endins (Walk Inside), for mixed choir
III. Baixa al cim de l’Ànima (Descent to the Summit of the Soul), for female voice choir
IV. Pedra nua (Naked Stone), for mixed choir
V. Pau al Cor (The Peaceful Heart), for solo soprano and mixed choir
VI. Engrunes de Llum (Luminous Crumbs), for choir of soloists, mixed choir, crotales and bar chimes
23, 24, 25 October 2015. Auditorio Nacional. Madrid, Spain
Yukiko Akagi, piano
Orquesta Nacional de España. Guillermo García Calvo, conductor
Commission: Orquesta Nacional de España
Recording sessions of e-piano, an audiovisual project performed by Alberto Rosado. The BBVA Foundation supports this pushful recording. Rosado performs works for piano, electronics and video, in close collaboration with composers Hilda Paredes, Cristian Morales, Arturo Fuentes, Ramon Humet, Jesús Navarro and Aurélio Edler-Copes.
30 January 2015
Pau al Cor Latvian Radio Choir. New Music Festival Arena.
1 October 2014. St. John's Church. New Music Festival Arena. Riga, Latvia
Latvian Radio Choir. Conductor: Sigvards Klava
1 October 2014
A fascinating project Niwa at Gramophone Magazine
This second release focuses on Ramon Humet (b 1968), who studied at the Barcelona Conservatoire and has latterly been influenced by the sonic and spiritual concerns of the late Jonathan Harvey. This is evident throughout the three works featured here -not least Four Zen Gardens (2008), in which three percussionists pursue a wide-ranging discourse unified by their heterophonic interplay over four main sections linked by three interludes of gently resonating timbres.
This fastidiousness is no less to the forefront in Garden of Haikus (2007), whose 10 brief yet continuous movements -each evoking a specific mood- unfold as might a sequence of interconnected Japanese poems. The haiku is the determining element of Petals (2009), whose three lengthy movements transmut Bankoku's text in ways which, for all their indebtedness to Oriental practice, constitute a unified as well as evolving conception that is inherently Western both in its formal and expressive concerns. (Richard Whitehouse)
3 February 2014
Sky Disc · Himmelsscheibe · Disc del Cel An opera-oratorio
Rebecca Simpson, idea and libretto. Ramon Humet, composition. Gerd-Hagen Seebach, stage direction. Andreas Henning, music direction World premiere: Halle Oper, Germany. 02.10.2013. Other performances: 06.10.2013, 18.10.2013, 23.10.2013, 09.11.2013, 24.11.2013