Current Festival

THIS YEAR'S EXPLORATORIO

“There is nothing new under the sun”. . .
NEO’s 2023 thematic launch point is that of Recurrence: a deliciously, inspiringly-cyclical cocktail of philosophical and poetic threads that unravel into one another over and again. Fantastically, the conversation around recurrence tends to repeat on itself quickly and often. As soon as we get our heads around part of it, we lose sight of the rest. Short of absolute acceptance, which has historically led to some interesting and often disastrous outcomes, recurrence is a concept that doesn’t settle well, and therefore is well-suited for creative expression. Music has so many opportunities for exploring and expressing recurrence, and we are thrilled to welcome you to join us as we delve into this revolving emotional space. In non-Euclidean geometry, parallel lines meet at infinity, and that’s where we look to find you, infinitely at NEO 2023!

The concept of eternal recurrence, or eternal return, has a long history ranging back to ancient religious philosophies in India, Egypt, and Greece. It experienced a revival in various ways in the modern era including through the Calvanist concept of predestination and Friedrich Nietzche’s work, primarily “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” among others. The core tenant argues that everything that happens will happen again. In its origins, eternal recurrence looks to the growth and decay of things in nature, the cycles and seasons, and says that surely these patterns must have universal connection. An interesting byproduct of eternal recurrence is the absence of free will. If time repeats itself, bringing with it identical experiences, then what you are doing right now has already been done and will be done again and there’s nothing you can do about it. Perhaps this is why recurrence has had a limited audience across the years except for in its more popular form of reincarnation, which carries with it a different set of temporal rules, and in the popular, everyday expression of deja vu.

Curiously, Einstein’s theory of general relativity shares a key tenant of recurrence in the absence of free will. Whereas recurrence argues that time will circle back on itself, Einstein showed us that time as a linear construct only exists in our imagination. Because of the ways in which space and time interact, all things that have been and will be are aligned simultaneously. Time simply is. Anything that you might one day do is happening right now, and everything from your past is happening right now, or, in a manner of speaking, all occasions have an alignment point. Einstein’s theory has held as a core pillar of physics for over a hundred years and with it the uncomfortable reality that free will exists only in our imagination. As disenchanting as this might seem, Sabine Hossenfelder, physicist and author of “Existential Physics,” expresses the mind-settling idea that if what we feel as the future has functionally already happened, then we have the unfettered capacity to notice, appreciate, and feel gratitude for what we can sense in life right now. These experiences certainly inspire the neurological building blocks of curiosity and creativity.

Today’s Sci-fi fan will also feel the urge to connect recurrence to the quantum mechanics-derived expression of the multiverse. The multiverse is a still-unproven idea, but extends from the belief that at any given point in time there are countless other versions of every individual and experience in countless other universes behaving similarly to one another. The multiverse can be thought of, perhaps, as recurrence expressed horizontally. We will weave recurrence into the NEO 2023 curriculum, seeking the ways in which it inspires vocal exploration, pedagogy and practice even as it inspires the creation of the music we will sing throughout the week. Let your head set on it for a moment, sink back into the multiverse of your musical wells and when you find yourself back at this point with something to add, join us. We’ll be waiting just as we always have been. . .

What We'll Do At A Glance

Compassion-Led Rehearsals
N.E.O. rehearsals are artist-centered and compassion-focused, choosing to elevate the individual by creating a corporate space in which each member can bring the fullness of their voice while they grow, explore, and thrive. We recognize that traditional artistic experiences are often laden with elements of judgment and pressure that lead to internal conflict among the very people who are there to share from places of vulnerability. Operating from the scientific definition of compassion written by researcher Paul Gilbert, we maintain ”a sensitivity to suffering in self and others with a commitment to try and alleviate and prevent it.” Rehearsal processes, learning and creative explorations, and activities grow from this place, yielding lasting connections that feed the group’s artistry as individuals find confidence in their personal expression. Listen to David Harris and Laurel Irene's podcast Underground Ictus to hear more in-depth discussions on compassion as a leadership motivation.

Illuminate Your Voice Practice
Explore the inner workings of the human voice, the most versatile acoustic instrument on the planet. Discover "why it does that" in digestible, experienced-based scientific explanations that allow you to find new entry points into your established practice. We will delve into multiple different stylistic approaches including traditional choral cathedral singing, operatic and art song strategies, and pop, music theater, jazz and other genres that use a range of acoustic approaches. With the use of hearing science, you will begin to understand how to apply new learning in creative, fun, and direct ways for your practice. If you're not someone who sings regularly, we'll help you feel more confident in your personal practice.

Change Your Ears/Change Your Voice
At N.E.O. we engage with vocal choices through the ear, using scientific understanding of acoustics, filtered listening technology, and the ear and brain combined into creative explorations. The sonic world that we illuminate with our voices every day remains a hidden mystery to most. Yet, within those secret realms lies exciting music and vocal tools waiting for your discovery. We guide this exploration with the VoiceScienceWorks Filtered Listening process that you can begin to explore on your own by visiting the website.

This spectrogram image shows the extreme variation present in the timbres of vowels we speak and sing every day. The vowel is labeled along the bottom as "vowel complex", and the individual vowel colors are labeled along the left side as "ASTC", shorthand for "absolute spectral tone color." At N.E.O. we learn to make sense of these changes logically and sonically so that we can access and recombine them artistically.

Create New Work
At the center of N.E.O.'s artist-centered focus lies the ExplOratorio, a concert-length work written by N.E.O. composers each year for the N.E.O. Festival Chorus and created by all of those in residence with N.E.O. each year. There are few things as inspiring as creating new music with a group of synergetic artists. In addition to the ExplOratorio, featured performers have the opportunity to bring their new projects to the opening night Out-Of-The-Voice-Box concert, and everyone will enjoy opportunities to write and sing new works throughout the week.

Expanding Your Vocal Tools
During the N.E.O. week you will have the opportunity to experience the exploration of different vocal styles, extended techniques, and timbral variations, and to begin to understand the functional underpinnings of them to help guide your future engagement with new vocal tools. Through the exploration of new sounds you'll also find stability, focus, and clarity in the sounds that you rely on in your current practice. Through artist-centered, compassion-led experiences based in the science of learning, you will be invited into new vocal spaces as well as new learning spaces. Some vocal tool highlights include: overtone singing, undertone singing, growling, rattling, stylistic variation through timbral adjustment that applies to all vocal sound systems, yodeling, throat singing, microtonality, and ensemble goals like blend, balance, and timbral alignment/contrast.

Amanda Cole's "Singing In Tune With Nature" (from "The New Morality Play," N.E.O. 2020) demonstrates approaches to overtone singing and microtonal vocal tools. Listen to the fundamentals in contrast to the whistles that form a halo of higher sounds created by the vowel glissandi.

Expanding Your Compositional Tools
Western notation excels at communicating pitch and time, but has few tools for composers to access when attempting to communicate timbral choices, emotion, and intention. We explore specific options for notating different timbres, overtones, vibrato, textures (growls, rattles), microtones, external physical adjustments, emotional and intention cues, and the subtle and robust practice of writing for the organ. Abe Ross leads composers through several sessions on The Great Organs At First Church, and offers one-on-one sessions with composers as they hone their organ scores should they choose to add the organ to their vocal piece. At N.E.O. everyone is a composer as we create together in targeted composition games where you play with the new tools we're developing. Here are a few scores from past N.E.O. Exploratorios that demonstrate some of the ways in which N.E.O. composers have communicated in new ways.

Jasper Sussman's graphic score "Introduction" from "The Origins Of Creativity", N.E.O. 2019, explores emotional and timbral notation through imagery and expanded use of Western musical notation.

Mathias Coppens' "Music For Choir" from "The New Morality Play", N.E.O. 2020, utilizes timbral layering, asking singers to use multiple timbral approaches at any given moment. In this part of the score he asks for stylistic variation defined as "cathedral choir" and "poppy and speaky" as well as overtone singing and declamatory speaking in combination with traditional articulation variation.

Amanda Cole's "Passion Choral" from "The Passions", N.E.O. 2021, deepens into overtone singing notation and microtonality for singers. She utilizes timbral relationships created by vowels to align overtones with sung phonemes, and communicates microtonal variations based on a C pedal as aural guides all over Bach's well-known "Passion Chorale," inviting our ears to hear traditional music in new ways.

Joogwang Lim's "Nun's Dance" from "The Passions", N.E.O. 2021, translates vocal gestures found in traditional Korean folk music for use in his Western-notated composition. He guides singers into vibrato choices and pitch glides, as well as opening them into emotional spaces that align with the dramatic arc of the piece.