Finding Song Home

 

Finding Song Home is a sonic bike opera that explores the injustices of birthright and questions the powers that enable or prevent the free movement of people.  By meeting with immigrants in Brussels over 6 months, Matthews gathered many stories which intimately told through the voices of their narrators, create a multi-threaded libretto that plays from GPS linked sonic bikes ridden by audience as they cycle the streets of Brussels.

 

The opera’s routes pass between La Monnaie, the canal and the squares of Molenbeek, its songs and narratives transforming the journey as they unfurl through the street’s shifting soundscapes along with Matthews’ electronic counterparts. With sounds triggered by where and how fast the audience cyclist goes, each participating audience cyclist creates and defines their own opera experience.

 

Matthews developed Finding Song Home as artist-in-residence at Q-02 and La Monnaie. During her stay, she explored the city, meeting and working with many different residents through the generous support of community groups GlobeAroma and Vaartkapoen. She also ran route composition workshops for children with theatre director Ivan Vrambout at la Maison des Cultures, Molenbeek, working too with Lucy Grauman, the STEMAGNIFIQUE choir and La Choraline teenage girls chorus from the opera house on VIP Passport Song.

VIP Passport Song lyrics were co-written with Mandy McIntosh . The melody was made from a sonification of the phrase VIP PASSPORT .

COMPOSITION BLOG HERE

 

 

 

Finding Song Home was commissioned by opera house La Monnaie de la Munt and Q-O2, Brussels, running from 9.5.15 to 24.11.16 throughout the city.

(or see Finding Song Home (VO – French, Flemish & English) )

Directed by Matthews and made with the Bicrophonic Research Institute(BRI) with tech development by Tom Keene, this is Matthews’ 8th sonic bike opera. For this project, eight new sonic bikes were made and developed in Brussels with cyclo. These bikes remain in Brussels to make new local works.

Production : De Munt & Q-O2.
BRI software system by David Griffiths developed by Tom Keene.

Made in collaboration with Bicrophonic Research Institute, Cyclo, FoAM, Globearoma, Rits/School of Arts, Maison des Cultures et de la Cohésion Sociale de Molenbeek- Saint-Jean, Vaartkapoen, Visit Brussels, Bessst.  Supported by Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Stad Brussl, Creative Europe program of the EU.

sonicbikes.net | www.demunt.be | www.q-o2.be