VOCES8 & Apollo5: Listen - Paul Smith

How can you respond to the sounds of the world around you? VOCES8 and Apollo5 explore this idea, responding to the sounds of Tibetan Singing Bowls with a gentle, meditative and inward performance that encourages the listener to close their eyes, have space to think and to listen deeply.

This is the world premiere performance of a new work, 'Listen' by Paul Smith, performed by VOCES8, Apollo5, Teena Lyle and directed by Paul. The piece is written as a companion piece to John Cage's iconic 4'33" and was performed as part of a concert experience called 'Renewal?' in the summer of 2021, as the world began to emerge from an enforced 'silence'.

'Listen' encourages the singers to create sung responses to the sounds that they hear being created by the Tibetan Singing Bowls. The playing of the bowls themselves is inspired by a piece of music developed as an installation called 'Longplayer', housed in London, which will continue to create new music for one thousand years.

The performers are given directions based on their position in a formation inspired by the Fibonacci spiral, and alongside sung notes, you can hear vocal overtones mingling with the harmonics from the Tibetan Singing Bowls.

'Listen' can be found on the album, 'Renewal?', which is released in early 2022.