Angel View is an assemblage of urban and musical debris, somewhere between a wordless live radio play, enacted film soundtrack and instrumental theatre, composed by Juliana Hodkinson.
Chiseling cement, falling debris, scraping cutlery, breaking glass, criss-crossing cables, squealing tram-wheels, an upturned bicycle, a travel souvenir, a shop window, a revolving carousel, a brace of monkeys, a wall under siege, a dining table laid for an ancestral dinner – it is a sonic bazaar. Made up of many parts, each designed to overlap, the work’s architecture is full of non-sequiturs and arbitrary cross-relations between imagined streets intersecting and running parallel, reflecting the surrealism of everyday life described in Walter Benjamin’s Einbahnstrasse and still present in the contemporary dilemmas and opportunities of Berlin today.
All this is heard as if from an aerial perspective - perhaps the Victory Column where angels sit in Wings of Desire - from where Berlin below is observed as a series of tragedies, as witnessed by Benjamin’s angel of history.
Juliana Hodkinson’s composition practice ranges over hybrid formats involving acoustic, instrumental and electronic music, extra-musical sounds and objects, and visual and spatial elements. Her works are composed in an interplay between abstract concepts and social relations, with sonic material arising through a mix of encounter and invention. Rituals of performance, the peripheral area surrounding artistic acts, and details of everyday interactions are integrated as objects of sensory and critical reflection.
Juliana Hodkinson has received major accolades such as the Carl Nielsen Prize and the Stuttgart Composition Prize, and she has been composer-in-residence with l’Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Mons and Odense Symphony Orchestra. She has received commissions from ensembles, festivals and arts organisations worldwide including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Chamber Made Opera, Interfilm Festival, Konzerthaus Berlin, Den Anden Opera, Speak Percussion, Spor Festival, Borealis Festival, Esbjerg Ensemble, Ensemble KNM, Südwestdeutsche Rundfunk, Westdeutsche Rundfunk, Odense Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Mons, Zinc & Copper Works, Haus der Kulturen der Welt and Phønix16. © col legno