| Doren asks Jegou to do unusual things
Calgary composer Kenneth Doren asks musicians to step outside their standard musical training, and in this regard he has found a true collaborator in mezzo-soprano Patrice Jegou, who likes working with him because he allows her to do everything she wasn't trained to do. The pair have worked together on several projects, including Doren’s earlier multimedia musical work "King Kong Digital Opera."
In "Rule Britannia," Jegou sings with the piano duos – sort of. Doren videotaped earlier vocal improvisations by Jegou, and it's that recording that the audience will see and hear as pianists Marcel and Elizabeth Bergmann play the music live. More than just a singer, Jegou actively performs for the video, with different characters, costumes and makeup. In this respect, the piece is operatic and, like opera, is sometimes exaggerated and campy.
"Composers don’t necessarily concern themselves with the visual performance," Doren says. "I want to think visually and musically and bring it together.... I am in control of the editing and the taping, and that is also an expression of a power struggle that I am aware of. I have more control over the singer and the performance.
"I allow moments of vulnerability that would otherwise be edited out.... Usually when a musician is performing, they come onstage, get into position, sing and play, and as an audience member you discount everything up to the point they play. I like to show the bookends – the setting up and the waiting.
"I catch moments when Patrice is off guard.... I keep the fumbles and corrections. For me, music is not the perfection but the experience and the living – the expressions. On video I was able to keep all that." |
