#80. Keltainen huone (Yellow Room), for choir (2008)

TITLE: Keltainen huone (Yellow Room)

CAT# (YEAR COMPOSED): 80 (2008)
INSTRUMENTATION: choir

PAGES: 18
DURATION (APPROX): 2’40

PUBLISHER:

Version A (with minimal voicing) published by BABELSCORES®

Version B (with voicing) unpublished

PREMIERE BY: Premiere was by a community choir (adult & youth) in Alajärvi, Finland on November 24, 2008 at the Nelimarkka Museum.

NOTE: Dedicated to Leena Passi and Ritta Thiam. The Painting on the cover titled Keltainen huone (Yellow Room) by Marjatta Hanhijoki was the inspiration for this piece

SCORE:

NOTE 2:

Keltainen huone (Yellow Room) was written during a residency at the Nelimarkka Museum in Alajärvi, Finland in October and November 2008. This was written for a mixed choir of adult and youth groups at the Music Institute in Alajärvi and was premiered on November 24, 2008 at the Nelimarkka Museum.

Nelimarkka Museum

Though mostly unvoiced, a sense of pitch contour will be achieved by the mostly unvoiced source highlighting the dominant formant frequencies of the vocal tract. These pitch contours will be notated such that a rise in pitch will correspond to a rise in notated pitch either above or below the single-lined staff.

NOTE 3: Version B

I decided to offer a second alternative version of Keltainen huone in response to a performance by 441 Hz Chamber Choir, conductor Anna Wilczewska in 2015 (which was subsequently released on a cd titled Modern Choral Masterpieces in November 2015 on Dux Records (Poland)). In the performance by 441 Hz, they reinterpreted the score to use mostly voiced rather than the intended unvoiced singing. The result is an expression that is light, airy and cheerful.

In this version B, the main difference is that the previously unvoiced singing is replaced by voiced singing. As in the previous version, the voiced lines are to follow the contours. No exact pitches are given, nor intended – this is left to the performers’ discretion. The nature of the voicing should feature sotto voce for most of the piece, except for the large contrapuntal complex on pages 8 to 10 when full voicing is intended.

Links of two different performances are given.

One for a light and cheerful theatrical version and the other for a concert version of the piece.

VERSION B. THEATRICAL VERSION

VERSION B. CONCERT VERSION

2015_12_20. Performance of composition. Keltainen huone (Yellow Room)
Performance by conductor, professor Cao Kun and the choir of Southwestern University at the Guangxi National Palace of Fine Arts in Nanning, China.

2021. Keltainen huone (Yellow Room) by Michael Edward Edgerton, performed by the Virtual UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus; Dr. Wei Cheng, Music Director