Composing Nostalgia

by Kaðlín Sara Ólafsdóttir

In the last few months, I have been working on a composition for voice and cassette player that has the working title “Hljóðfirring” (an Icelandic word used in linguistics about when a sound changes due to the influence of the sound of the next syllable and gets distant (or disappears)).

The work is in four parts where a singing voice leads the listeners through the work with repetitions of a mysterious melody and chords inspired by Icelandic folk tales, music and rhymes. Sounds from old tapes, field-recordings, and instruments such as clarinet, piano and organ will be used in accompaniment and harmony with the voice. The sounds are then to be processed through additional cassette players, audio programs, and effects such as tape-echo to enhance the themes of the composition which are isolation, time and nostalgia. I am most recently experimenting with using loop cassettes that I have made myself, as a delay effect.

The piece uses multiple cassette players to play vocal melodies and other instruments and recordings in order to create a ghostly sounding choir. The cassette players influence the speed of the recording and therefore the pitch making the recordings unstable and unpredictable. Inspired by folk tales I was told as a kid I want the voices to sound like ghosts singing through the wind and voices coming to someone in a dream. The piece will be performed through a multi-channel sound system with the addition of a few small cassette players scattered around to immerse the audience in the sound world.

This summer, with the help of a composer’s grant from RUV and STEF, I have begun working on this project, which will be premiered at LOOS and at a RASK event in Reykjavík, Iceland this December.

- Composing Nostalgia – Hljóðfirring – Kaðlín Sara Ólafsdóttir – August 2021