Elo Masing
Royal Academy of Music, Composition, Graduate Student
- Elo Masing is a composer/free improviser of Estonian origin, currently based in Berlin, Germany. Her music has been performed internationally by renowned soloists and ensembles, such as Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (EE), Ensemble L'Itinéraire (FR), Ensemble Adapter (DE), Ensemble Fractal... moreElo Masing is a composer/free improviser of Estonian origin, currently based in Berlin, Germany. Her music has been performed internationally by renowned soloists and ensembles, such as Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (EE), Ensemble L'Itinéraire (FR), Ensemble Adapter (DE), Ensemble Fractales (BE), Ensemble mmm... (Japan), Ian Pace (UK), Zubin Kanga (Australia) and many others. Her music has appeared on labels such has Squeaky Kate, squib-box, CRAM, Creative Sources, and 577 Records. In 2015, she was awarded a PhD from the Royal Academy of Music, London, where she explored the physicality of instrumental performance in chamber music, and with support from the Academy, received private tuition from Rebecca Saunders in Berlin.
With composer-improviser Dave Maric, she forms the free improvisation duo Vicious Circus whose debut album was released to critical acclaim in 2014, followed in 2015 by an innovative release of the album "Hand Written Tweets" on 12 unique wax cylinders. She is also member of the Berlin-based composers’-improvisers’ ensemble Reanimation Orchestra, as well as the London-based large-scale free improvisation group London Experimental Ensemble, renowned for making the first complete recording of Cornelius Cardew's "Treatise".(Elo Masing is a composer/free improviser of Estonian origin, currently based in Berlin, Germany. Her music has been performed internationally by renowned soloists and ensembles, such as Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (EE), Ensemble L'Itinéraire (FR), Ensemble Adapter (DE), Ensemble Fractales (BE), Ensemble mmm... (Japan), Ian Pace (UK), Zubin Kanga (Australia) and many others. Her music has appeared on labels such has Squeaky Kate, squib-box, CRAM, Creative Sources, and 577 Records. In 2015, she was awarded a PhD from the Royal Academy of Music, London, where she explored the physicality of instrumental performance in chamber music, and with support from the Academy, received private tuition from Rebecca Saunders in Berlin.<br />With composer-improviser Dave Maric, she forms the free improvisation duo Vicious Circus whose debut album was released to critical acclaim in 2014, followed in 2015 by an innovative release of the album "Hand Written Tweets" on 12 unique wax cylinders. She is also member of the Berlin-based composers’-improvisers’ ensemble Reanimation Orchestra, as well as the London-based large-scale free improvisation group London Experimental Ensemble, renowned for making the first complete recording of Cornelius Cardew's "Treatise".)edit
The paper provides an account of an innovative collaborative work between composer/violinist Elo Masing, choreographer/dancer Jean Lee, and the Kreutzer String Quartet. The project challenges the conventions of music and dance... more
The paper provides an account of an innovative collaborative work between composer/violinist Elo Masing, choreographer/dancer Jean Lee, and the Kreutzer String Quartet. The project challenges the conventions of music and dance collaboration by proposing a fundamentally new way of working across disciplines, establishing a profound interrelation between movement and sound production.The work so far has mostly involved developing a new notation system for string instruments and dancer suitable for recording the sounds and movements the work in progress will primarily be based on. The paper will, at this stage, demonstrate only a fraction of the various possibilities of this new way of musician–dancer collaboration that is estimated to span over the next couple of years. The idea for the piece dates back to June 2010, when a structured improvisation was created in collaboration between Elo Masing and Jean Lee, commissioned for a conference at Roehampton University.The innovative aspect...
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Notation()
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The paper provides an account of an innovative collaborative project between composer/violinist Elo Masing, choreographer/dancer Jean Lee, and Toki String Quartet, which employs a fundamentally new way of working across disciplines by... more
The paper provides an account of an innovative collaborative project between composer/violinist Elo Masing, choreographer/dancer Jean Lee, and Toki String Quartet, which employs a fundamentally new way of working across disciplines by establishing a profound and tangible interrelation between movement and sound production. A large part of the collaborative process involved developing a new notation system for string instruments and dancer suitable for recording certain sounds and movements discovered in crossdisciplinary
improvisation sessions. The paper discusses some facets of this unprecedented musician-dancer collaboration that culminated in the creation of a new work for string quartet and dancer titled Planes.
improvisation sessions. The paper discusses some facets of this unprecedented musician-dancer collaboration that culminated in the creation of a new work for string quartet and dancer titled Planes.
Research Interests:
The paper provides an account of an innovative collaborative work between composer/violinist Elo Masing, choreographer/dancer Jean Lee, and the Kreutzer String Quartet. The project challenges the conventions of music and dance... more
The paper provides an account of an innovative collaborative work between composer/violinist Elo Masing, choreographer/dancer Jean Lee, and the Kreutzer String Quartet. The project challenges the conventions of music and dance collaboration by proposing a fundamentally new way of working across disciplines, establishing a profound interrelation between movement and sound production.
The work so far has mostly involved developing a new notation system for string instruments and dancer suitable for recording the sounds and movements the work in progress will primarily be based on. The paper will, at this stage, demonstrate only a fraction of the various possibilities of this new way of musician–dancer collaboration that is estimated to span over the next couple of years. The idea for the piece dates back to June 2010, when a structured improvisation was created in collaboration between Elo Masing and Jean Lee, commissioned for a conference at Roehampton University.
The innovative aspect of the project is manifested in the development of choreography and music together from the very beginning, using new sound and movement languages discovered in interdisciplinary improvisation sessions. In the center of the collaboration lies the definition of the roles of the musician and the dancer as equal, with equally complex compositional material and interchanging ideas. That means composing music and dance simultaneously and letting them influence each other.
The new notation system for string instruments focuses on the movements of string players, thus creating a possibility for relating music to dance in a more tangible and visual rather than conceptual and abstract way.
The work so far has mostly involved developing a new notation system for string instruments and dancer suitable for recording the sounds and movements the work in progress will primarily be based on. The paper will, at this stage, demonstrate only a fraction of the various possibilities of this new way of musician–dancer collaboration that is estimated to span over the next couple of years. The idea for the piece dates back to June 2010, when a structured improvisation was created in collaboration between Elo Masing and Jean Lee, commissioned for a conference at Roehampton University.
The innovative aspect of the project is manifested in the development of choreography and music together from the very beginning, using new sound and movement languages discovered in interdisciplinary improvisation sessions. In the center of the collaboration lies the definition of the roles of the musician and the dancer as equal, with equally complex compositional material and interchanging ideas. That means composing music and dance simultaneously and letting them influence each other.
The new notation system for string instruments focuses on the movements of string players, thus creating a possibility for relating music to dance in a more tangible and visual rather than conceptual and abstract way.
Research Interests:
The commentary defines augmented instrumental choreography as an embodied method of composing that focuses in on and magnifies the physical movements involved in performing instrumental music and uses choreographic processes in developing... more
The commentary defines augmented instrumental choreography as an embodied method of composing that focuses in on and magnifies the physical movements involved in performing instrumental music and uses choreographic processes in developing musical material, turning the choreographic nature of instrumental performance into a significant compositional resource and illuminating the continuum between the kinaesthetic and the auditory.
It outlines the rationale behind investigating the physicality of instrumental performance, based, among other sources, on Peggy Phelan’s and Philip Auslander’s texts in performance studies, Jean Baudrillard’s analysis of the dangers of the extensive mediatization of the contemporary world, Merleau- Ponty’s phenomenology of perception and Nicholas Cook’s critique of the conventions surrounding musical performance, and contextualizes my work within the so-called ‘first wave’ of physicality-centered composition as represented by Helmut Lachenmann and Mauricio Kagel, as well as my contemporaries, such as Evan Johnson, Aaron Cassidy, Simon Steen-Andersen and Neil Luck.
The commentary then continues to look at the web of interrelationships between different areas of interest that define the musical compositions in the submission portfolio in a series of case studies and concludes that the logical continuation for a composer working with augmented instrumental choreography could be to overcome the various professional divisions of ‘musician’, ‘dancer’, ‘composer’, ‘choreographer’, and to begin working with the dance community in a scenic context, making work that is collaborative in the fullest sense, exploring the domains of ‘composition in/as performance’ and ‘composition as scenography’.
The scores of the pieces subject to this commentary are viewable here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3dugw44us8kw2vc/AACaAabDVoGpHpfkfoWe0sK-a?dl=0
It outlines the rationale behind investigating the physicality of instrumental performance, based, among other sources, on Peggy Phelan’s and Philip Auslander’s texts in performance studies, Jean Baudrillard’s analysis of the dangers of the extensive mediatization of the contemporary world, Merleau- Ponty’s phenomenology of perception and Nicholas Cook’s critique of the conventions surrounding musical performance, and contextualizes my work within the so-called ‘first wave’ of physicality-centered composition as represented by Helmut Lachenmann and Mauricio Kagel, as well as my contemporaries, such as Evan Johnson, Aaron Cassidy, Simon Steen-Andersen and Neil Luck.
The commentary then continues to look at the web of interrelationships between different areas of interest that define the musical compositions in the submission portfolio in a series of case studies and concludes that the logical continuation for a composer working with augmented instrumental choreography could be to overcome the various professional divisions of ‘musician’, ‘dancer’, ‘composer’, ‘choreographer’, and to begin working with the dance community in a scenic context, making work that is collaborative in the fullest sense, exploring the domains of ‘composition in/as performance’ and ‘composition as scenography’.
The scores of the pieces subject to this commentary are viewable here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3dugw44us8kw2vc/AACaAabDVoGpHpfkfoWe0sK-a?dl=0