#mindpower visits the World Choir Games champions from Hungary
In the latest episode of the # mindpower project, the Ars Nova vocal ensemble from Hungary conjures up a vocal improvisation of works by the Latvian poets Rainis and Aspazija. At the World Choir Games in Riga last year, Ars Nova became champions in the Mixed Vocal Ensembles category.
Katalin Kiss is a professor at the Kodály Institute of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Hungary. In 1990, she founded the Ars Nova ensemble and since then the choir has won major titles at international competitions and performed in hundreds of concert halls worldwide. The ensemble is currently ranked No.7 in the Chamber Choirs and Vocal Ensembles category of the INTERKULTUR World Rankings.
In its repertoire, the ensemble focuses particularly on Hungarian music, from classical to very modern vocal compositions.
Ars Nova. Publicity photo
In the seventh episode of the # mindpower project, the ensemble offers an unusual interpretation of Rainis and Aspazija's poetry in the form of a musical improvisation. Poems from Aspazija’s poetry collection “Strewn Roses (1936) and Rainis’ poetry book “New Power (1906) are featured in this short film.
The shooting of this episode turned out to be very exciting, as the film crew witnessed how the ensemble tackled the texts by Rainis and Aspazija, and how they worked, improvised and searched for various means of vocal expression until the perfect musical performance was created.
Speaking about this experience, Katalin Kiss admits that it was an extraordinary challenge, because the ensemble does not often do improvisation.
“It was very interesting to watch how each participant opened up to this task. Whilst there was some caution at the beginning, everyone joined in later with their ideas. I believe we managed to find a sound where the music complements the text, explains the conductor.
Rainis and Aspazija (played by Goran Gora and Eva Ikstena-Strapcāne), for their part, were excited to take a trip on an airplane.
Shooting of the #mindpower project. Photo: Jura Podnieka Studija
The #mindpower (#domasspēks i n Latvian) project features a collection of 29 short films in which celebrities from all the EU Member States read excerpts from the works of Rainis and Aspazija in their native language and clothe them in images of their culture. The project is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of both poets and it is a part of the Presidency cultural programme.
Each week a new video is released on the Presidency’s website EU2015.LV. You can also watch the episodes on the Presidency’s official Youtube channel and on the project’s Facebook page.