Amy X Neuburg/Cory Smythe
Roulette
Brooklyn, NY
Dec. 13, 2011

It’s East Meets West…coast, that is.

On the stage of the old-school charming Roulette in Brooklyn was yet another creatively edgy program, put on this time by the pairing of West-coast avant-cabaret artist Amy X Neuburg and New York’s own pianist-composer, ICE‘s Cory Smythe. Presented without an intermission, the show was almost entirely electronic or electro-acoustic in nature (with the exception of a refreshing burst of Fats Waller’s “Handful of Keys” from Mr. Smythe), and most of the pieces were composed and/or arranged by both of them.

The proceedings kicked-off with When, a piece that was originally premiered at one of Present Music Ensemble‘s 30th Anniversary concerts in Milwaukee back in June 2011, where the two artists first met. Neuburg is a very strong performer that has a gifted virtuosity for looping in performance, to the point where she hits the looping mechanism hard when she shifts the pattern. Neuburg’s voice having such a big presence in this art form, the show was like a resume of her vocal styles, ranging from beautiful, to spoken word, to plaintive, to loud and ugly. 2 Disorders was an interesting example of how low (and ugly) her voice goes, while My God showcased her ability to sing choir-style (looping herself into something that sounded like “Coventry Carol”), use spoken-word over the looped carol, and then spew a frenzied rant over a visceral art-noise sample.

Other noteworthy parts of Neuburg’s performance were The Rat, rendering what sounded like an English-language sprechstimme. Every Little Stain had her utilizing teeth-brushing for a rhythm track. Agriculture, while not one of my favorite pieces, was fascinating for Neuburg’s use of an inside-piano-mike for her vocals at the start of the piece.

Smythe is a fabulous pianist, and I think the idea of playing piano together with loops and electronic sound can be a creative playground as evidenced on his recording pluripotent, but despite his great work with Neuburg at this show, the material from his album didn’t feel as exciting as a live performance. I’m not sure if the technical delay at the start of his solo portion had anything to do with that–It sort of felt to me like he was checking it out for the first time. The underwater effect on Lung & Lake and a couple of other of his pieces did induce a calming mood in me, but I couldn’t help but feel much happier during “Handful of Keys”.

They wrapped the night up with their own hi-tech re-working of Schubert’s breakthrough lied Gretchen am Spinnrade, replete with loops and electronic storm winds. Plus Neuburg sang it in German. It was an appropriate conclusion to the program.

Vital Vox: A Vocal Festival (Vital Vox 2011)
Roulette
Brooklyn, NY
Sat, Nov 5 & Sun, Nov 6, 2011

I guess there was no better way to kick off the Vital Vox Festival than with a primal scream. Gelsey Bell and her partner for this performance, composer/performer Paul Pinto, actually gave us several of them separate and together at the start of the song cycle Scaling, and they seemed to be the sound that signified both the power of vocal performance and the experimental nature of the festival as well.
In general, the festival is a huge emphasis on artists that recognize the human voice as an instrument, an instrument that has just as much range and capability as any great violin, piano or guitar, and works wonderfully as a duet with other instruments or other voices. These artists are all equally gifted as vocalists as they are composers or musicians of other instruments, and they all put on compelling performances.

Night One: Vocals and Keys

Bell started the festival with a song cycle that was an artist’s display of going against a normal piano song set. After the screams, they changed shoes, and Bell performed piano in various ways other than hands in front (i.e. behind her back, from on top of the piano lying on her stomach, with her knuckles, knees and arms, from the floor, etc)–Pinto was on the stage floor placing dirt from a plant and pieces of paper inside several little sacks tied shut with strings (More about this in a second), putting foil tins and pins inside the piano for a prepared piano sound on one of the songs. For a couple of songs, Bell also switched over to a small digital synth keyboard on the floor that had a tiny microphone, in which she gave spoken word about youth foibles and piano songs (“…Every love song is for the piano, not as an instrument, but as a surface…”). Despite its feeding back like crazy, the mike seemed to spur Bell’s performance regardless.
For the last song of the cycle, Pinto handed the bags he was preparing out to the members of the audience (some of us; me being one of them), and inside was the plant dirt and a note saying “when you see the signal, come and press your ear close to the skin of the piano”. So we went onstage and proceeded with what was basically an avant-garde take on audience participation, and though I thought she would either scream again or hit a loud chord cluster to shake us, she just finished the piece quietly.

Using Wii remotes and a laptop, Dafna Naphtali followed with her solo performance project titled {kaleid-o-phone}, a cavalcade of electronic pieces with an equally experimental vocal performance both with and without delay effects. A brief set, but she made great use of the effects and combining them masterfully with her vocalizations.

The night’s biggest reactions were saved for Judith Berkson, who previewed her forthcoming opera with a suite of demo versions of the arias titled Vor an Sicht. Berkson’s solo performances on vocals, minimal drums and percussion, organ and piano (accompanied with some pre-looped drums and vocal parts), gave everyone a taste of the final scoring with drum core, organ and children’s choir, but this solo performance seemed to be in and of itself another unique work of its own, and hopefully will still be after the opera is published.
Berkson’s cantor-trained voice lent much authenticity to the liturgical nature of the work, and the combination of the a cappella choral music with the sound of visceral drums promises a striking piece for the opera stage.

Night Two: Vocals and Strings

Toby Twining Music kicked off night two with a rather puzzlingly joyous sound due to the fact that one just doesn’t expect such a feeling towards music that uses “notes between the cracks of piano keys” as Toby put it–The group seems to invoke thoughts of “The Swingle Singers meets Alarm Will Sound”.
Though the group is primarily a vocal one, they do make great use of the cello played by Malina Rauschenfels (who played Twining’s unaccompanied cello piece Schoenberg Dreaming), and she is equally productive as a member of the singing group.
By the end of their set as they performed “Yes Yes Yes!” from the recently-released CD Eurydice, the group looked excited and the audience seemed just as much.

When they aren’t busy running and functioning as artistic directors of Vital Vox, Sasha Bogdanowitsch (who also emceed) and Sabrina Lastman are also the performing ensemble SoCorpo. The duo performed their new work Inelement, a cycle that highlights the natural elements (In this work there’s a fifth one: Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Void), and the piece was scored for vocals, autoharp (strings struck with tuning forks) and bowed psaltery (with white bows, but the forks were also used for this).
Sasha and Sabrina played so exquisitely off of each other that they sounded at times like one voice, and, like Toby Twining’s group, have a superb use of both harmony and oral shapes.

For the closer, Iva Bittova came out with with her violin, a kazoo and a mbira, and placed them on the stage as she proceeded to walk around the audience and, un-miked, utilizing the acoustics of the auditorium, filled the hall with a stunning a cappella intro to the work Wood In The Wind, sung in what sounded like Czech, English and un-worded vocal sounds. Right by the front row where I was, she picked up the fiddle and began blending in a slow but gradually building up spiccato that evolved into a manic duet between voice and violin, and punctuated with occasional foot stomps, the piece was in full force.
Bittova also played a section with mbira, and another one with kazoo, with which she proceeded to provide the audience with intentional laughs as she gave an unusually comical side of herself and performed a mock jazz vocalization and pantomimed a trombone slide.
Bittova wrapped up with one last exciting violin piece and was given the festival’s only standing ovation.

A very fascinating and exciting show on both nights, I hope that we see even bigger turnouts and the need for even bigger venues for Vital Vox in the years to come.

VitalVox.com
Official website for Vital Vox

The following are extended versions of the interviews I had with Toby Twining and Iva Bittova, who are both appearing at the 2011 Vital Vox Festival (Both will be performing on Night 2: Vocals + Strings)

First up, Toby Twining talks about his beginnings and inspiration as well as the new and current material.

CM: How did you go from roots in country-swing to rock to the other-worldly music you’ve been making for various instruments, including voices and chamber ensemble?

TT: This is a long story—I’ll attempt a Reader’s Digest version.

I grew up in Houston and my maternal grandparents were both pro musicians—grandad played guitar, pedal steel, string bass; grandmother played gospel piano like Liberace/Debussy mix. As a teenager, I played guitars, bass, and keys in rock bands. All the kids played Texas blues as well.

At age 16 I longed to expand my compositional palette and started listening to classical music. The European art music repertoire was almost entirely new to me. In addition to that, over the next 12 years or so, I learned some Jewish folk music, immersed myself in Early music, Ghanaian drumming, Ba Benzele vocal music, throat singing, improvisation at the piano for modern dance classes, the 20th century avant garde and studied composition with Ben Johnston (who didn’t teach me JI in my lessons, btw, but focussed on supporting my aspirations to compose and giving me a handle on organic form). While hanging around after graduation at the University of Illinois in Urbana, my friend Bill Brooks (now at York, UK) asked me to sing in a concert that featured Stimmung, Messiaen’s Cinq Rechant and Cage’s Song Books. Performing these works gave me a sense of terra incognita—the potential for extended vocal techniques with expansive structures—and I felt that all the mixed experience of my musical past coalesced finally in a vision for a new vocal sound. I’d like to think that the human voice can actually take a leading role in musical innovation again.

CM: Can you talk about the new pieces Toby Twining Music is performing at the show?

TT: About 12 years ago, Margaret Leng Tan commissioned me to write settings of poems and prose from Hesse’s Wandering, his sort of travel journal after WWI that included his watercolors. The work was originally for piano, narrator and tenor. Margaret and I put the project on the back burner eventually, in part because I couldn’t get enough pitches out of the piano.

I’ve begun to rework Wandering as bilingual, soprano duets for my ensemble (SSATBB, Vc) and can now do what I want with the harmony, which, in [Harry] Partch’s terms, is 13 limit otonal and utonal, but also modulates in ways that were unavailable to pre-digital musicians. The music is strikingly different from the earlier versions. We’ll premier Magic of Colors and Walk at Night, which feature Eileen Clark as soloist for the German and Eric Brenner for the English, Malina Rauschenfels playing cello and singing alto simultaneously, Avery Griffin and me on some inverted throat singing (fundamental moves while ‘monic ties over), and other timbral/rhythmic vocal effects that I can’t resist.

There’s a solo sonic poem/rap piece called O&E@theBeach, and a piece for solo cello called Schoenberg Dreaming–How I imagine he heard music in his sleep while evolving toward pantonality, moving around the frequency spectrum by interlocking interval cells comprised of pure intervals.

We’re also performing Yes! Yes! Yes! from our recent CD, Eurydice.

CM: The group sounded great at Bang On a Can (at WFC) when I was there volunteering–Do the different audiences of each venue affect the performances of the musicians?

TT: Thanks. Sure, the audience is one important factor for affecting our performances because of the informational loop that flows between people—even if it’s just body language and no one is talking, the loop is there. It affects singers enormously.

CM: I’ve been seeing quite a few things happening now with chamber musicians/soloists that have singing roles in works now. Do all of the members of Toby Twining Music sing?

TT: In the present configuration, yes. That’ll probably change with some future projects that include more strings and winds.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Czech violinist/vocalist Iva Bittova chatted very briefly about her inspiration and what she plans to perform.

CM: First of all, did you have any idea that you would be creating a very unique-sounding vocals-and-violin music? You are quite dynamic as a violinist alone, and then there’s your percussive vocal style combined with that.

IB: Yes, I would love to create spontaneously some new vibrations with my voice and violin. In my program is a lot of space for improvisation, it [just depends] on audience and acoustic space.

CM: You had put music aside for a time to be an actress in film. What was it that brought you back to the music world?

IB: As a musician I got more freedom to create myself and express my ideas of art. It is more difficult but same time very independent, which makes me happy.

CM: Will you be premiering any new pieces at the festival?

IB: Improvisation would be there as a new sound, also some songs, which I played just few times and always inspiration of every other performance coming stronger. It is quite long process and requires time to grow.

CM: Loved the piece you did with TwoSense last year–Will there be more commissioned works along those lines?

IB: Hopefully…

CM: The improvised work you do sounds so pure and meant-to-be. How long have you done that?

IB: I am on my way to raise my music from 1985. Still need more years to go.

2011 Vital Vox Festival
Sat, Nov 5th and Sun, Nov 6th, 8 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave (At the Corner of 3rd Ave)
Brooklyn, NY 11217
(917) 267-0363

info@vitalvoxfest.com

Vital Vox Festival.com
Official website for the festival

Toby Twining Music.com
Toby’s official website

Iva Bittova.com
Iva’s official website

Last year, saxophonist Trygve Seim and pianist Andreas Utnem collaborated on Purcor, a recording for the ECM imprint (Seim’s sixth as leader). Drawing on material from a wide range of sources, including settings of the Mass, folk music, and Seim’s own compositions, it was among the recordings in frequent rotation when I got home from the hospital this past November. Needing a calm environment in which to regenerate and reflect, I found Purcor to be the perfect listening to accompany a healing respite.

Meditative yet soulful, earnest yet elegant, gently articulated yet substantively thoughtful, Seim and Utnem craft a series of duets that are spellbinding. Consistently succor supplying and diverse in mood and musical approach, the compositions on Purcor inhabit both jazz and an ecumenical kind of musical liturgy.

Given what they’ve crafted on the recording, I have no doubt that Seim and Utnem will provide an affecting evening of music this Sunday. Those seeking solace in artistic expression during this weekend’s commemoration of the September 11, 2001 attacks have many options from which to choose, including a marathon we’ve also mentioned as an excellent option. Seim and Utnem will doubtless provide calm in the midst of storms of media frenzy, terror alerts, and turbulent memories. Recommended.

In Concert
Trygve Seim / Andreas Utnem
September 11th, 7pm
Norwegian Seamen’s Church
317 East 52nd Street
New York, NY 10022-6302
(212) 319-0370

Free of charge

Trygve Seim: tenor and soprano saxophones
Andreas Utnem: piano, harmonium

Click here to view the embedded video.

Music After is as much a commemoration of community as it is a memorial for those lost on that morning ten years ago. “So many people I spoke with (after 9/11),” says Sandresky, “talked about how important it had been for them to join in their community and help out. It was definitely something that I had wanted to do as well but couldn’t. Living as I did then with the “pile”–as it was known–literally just around the corner, it was too overwhelming for me, but there were many that did volunteer.
“On the first anniversary [of 9/11],” adds Felsenfeld, “when so many large-scale memorials and commemorations were laid out, I remember thinking that the best way to actually acknowledge the event musically had less to do with ‘requiems’ and ‘threnodies’ and more to do with people. I was a few blocks from the World Trade Center that morning, I saw (and smelled and felt) everything. And I was certainly not alone. So I imagined a LONG concert where every composer or songwriter we could locate who either lived there or happened to be there would be represented with a short and modest work. Then the event becomes not about the fallen or the horror of the day, but about the sheer scope of composers–different kinds of composers, many of whom define what we think of in terms of various musical “scenes”–who were in the thick of the morning.” “This event,” says Sandresky, “is about bringing our community together to stand and sing and play together on this day. And we are coming together as a community and reaching out to our greater community with music.”

Felsenfeld adds that “it is the scope of the concert that makes its point: that so many were affected so directly. Even a four-hour concert would require us to leave out people, and we didn’t want to have to do that. Besides–and I will speak for myself here but suspect I’m not the only one who feels this way–every year September 11 is a difficult day to get through, and we liked the idea that there was a place where, from 8.46am, the moment the first plane hit, until the earliest moments of September 12, there would be somewhere for people in our own community to go. Even if they don’t come,–even if none of them come–it is just a good thing to have as an option.”

In this spirit of community, Music After is a completely grass-roots organized, produced and funded event. There are no corporate or institutional sponsors. Sandresky and Felsenfeld are, therefore, relying on the new music community to rally together to make this event happen, providing yet another avenue for participation for those of us who may not have been directly affected by the events of September 11, 2001 (because we did not live in New York or Washington) but who still bear the scars of this national tragedy. To that end, there are a number of ways to contribute: you can give to Music After’s IndieGoGo campaign or if you have a PayPal account and would like to contribute using that service, you can visit the event’s web site and click on the “give” tab; for large donations, please contact Eleonor Sandresky and/or Daniel Felsenfeld directly via musicafter911@gmail.com for further information on how to make your contribution. “As far as giving goes,” says Felsenfeld, “both Eleonor and myself are strictly volunteers–nothing is going directly to us–and the Joyce SoHo has generously donated their space for the day. All the money we need is going to pay for the people who are going to make the event happen that day: the performers, the crew, the tech, as well as the rental of the equipment. Almost everyone is working at a reduced rate, but with eighteen hours of music, over 50 composers, and somewhere around 75 performers as well as a full staff, you can see that we’ll need your help.”

The organizers (and many of the participants) are donating their time; but it’s still proving a challenge to fund an event of this size. If you’d like to help out with a contribution of any amount, we’ve included some information below to facilitate that process.

1) Click here to give a small amount (even $2 or 3 helps)

2) Visit www.musicafter.com to give through Vision Into Art, who have generously offered to be our 510(c)3 fiscal conduit.  This is done through PayPal.

3) If you want to give a more substantial amount, send a check (made out to Vision Into Art) to: Music After, 336 Park Place #3, Brooklyn, NY 11238

Music After Composers: Annie Gosfield, Carter Burwell, Charles Waters, Dafna Naphtali, Daniel Felsenfeld, David Bowie, David Byrne, David Del Tredici, David First, David Lang, David Linton, David Soldier, Don Byron, Eleonor Sandresky, Elliott Carter, Elliot Sharp, Eve Beglarian, Hans Tammen, Harold Meltzer, Joan LaBarbara, Joanne Brackeen, John King, Jon Gibson, Judd Greenstein, Judy Nylon, Julia Heyward, Julia Wolfe, Julie Harrison, Justin V. Bond, LaMonte Young, Laurie Anderson, Laurie Spiegel, Lou Reed, Matthew Shipp, Meredith Monk, Michael Friedman, Michael Gordon, Mohammed Fairouz, Morton Subotnik, Nico Muhly, Patti Smith, Phil Kline, Philip Glass, Phill Niblock, Robert Ashley, Rosanne Cash, Rufus Wainright, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Steve Bull, Steve Reich, Steven Trask, Stewart Wallace, Sxip Shirey, Tim Mukherjee

Dear Colleagues,

If you are in the vicinity of Bloomington,  Indiana, come join us at the premiere of the 2011 version of Don Freund‘s PASSION with Tropes, scheduled for May 20 and 21 at the Ruth N. Hall Theatre of Indiana University. Originally conceived as a monumental oratorio for large forces, it was adapted by Freund for an immersive and interactive multidisciplinary production. In this 80-minute version, PASSION with Tropes is cast for actors, dancers, and an ensemble of  approximately 40 voices and  instrumentalists who take multiple roles as soloists,  chamber groups and even as a jazz combo. It has been a fascinating process to see how the work has gained unexpected layers of meaning under the lens of the interdisciplinary artists. For more information, visit: http://blogs.music.indiana.edu/passionwithtropes/

Outsound acquired a Board of Directors and incorporated its bad self in 2009.  Now with a 501(c)(3) IRS determination in hand, it’s a stalwart provider of experimental music, sound art, found sounds, improvisation, noise, musique concrete, minimalism, and any other kind of sound that is too weird for a mainstream gig in the Bay Area.

The upcoming 2011 Outsound New Music Summit is the 10th annual, running from July 17-23, 2011. All events will take place at the San Francisco Community Music Center, 344 Capp Street, San Francisco. Eager listeners can purchase advance tickets online.

Sunday July 17: Touch the Gear Exposition
Outsound’s free opening event allows the public to roam among the Summit’s musicians and sound artists and their sonic inventions, asking questions, making noise and learning how these darn things work.

Monday July 18: Discussion Panel: Elements of non-idiomatic compositional strategies
Another free public event in which composers Krys Bobrowski, Andrew Raffo Dewar, Kanoko Nishi and Gino Robair will discuss the joys and pains of creating new works some of which to be premiered in The Art of Composition.  The public is invited to participate in a Q&A session.

Wednesday July 20: FACE MUSIC
This concert is devoted to the voice, the world’s oldest instrument, and artists who expand its horizons: Theresa Wong, Joseph Rosenzweig, Aurora Josephson, and Bran…(POS).

Thursday July 21: The Freedom of Sound
A night of operatic free expression, and power of spontaneous sound from Tri-Cornered Tent Show featuring guest vocalist Dina Emerson, Oluyemi and Ijeoma Thomas’ Positive Knowledge, and Tom Djll’s “lowercase big band”, Grosse Abfahrt with special guest Alfred Harth (A23H).

Friday July 22: The Art of Composition
Gino Robair premieres his Aguascalientes suite based on scenes captured by Jose Guadalupe Posada, Andrew Raffo Dewar’s Interactions Quartet performs Strata (2011) dedicated to Eduardo Serón, Kanoko Nishi premieres her graphic scores along with bassist Tony Dryer, and Krys Bobrowski offers Lift, Loft and Lull, a series of short pieces exploring the sonic properties of metal pipes and plates and the use of balloons as resonators.

Saturday July 23: Sonic Foundry Too!
In a sequel to the first Sonic Foundry performance in 2006, 10 musical instrument inventors are paired up in 5 collaborations: Tom Nunn, Steven Baker, Bob Marsh, Dan Ake, Sung Kim, Walter Funk, Brenda Hutchinson, Sasha Leitman, Bart Hopkins, and Terry Berlier.

One of the most exciting areas for new music in recent years has been in the field of choral music. In the next two weeks, two choirs devoted to new music—one a veteran organization, the other an exciting, young rookie—will be presenting important programs of new choral works in both coasts.

The rookie is Baltimore’s Anima Nova Chamber Choir, which will present a concert of works by Eric Whitacre, Tarik O’Regan, Michael Rickelston, Sean Doyle, and Anima Nova founder and director, Jake Runestad. The concert, at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 8 at St. Ignatius Church, 740 North Calvert Street in Baltimore, will benefit the Peabody Preparatory’s “Jr. Bach” scholarship, which provides opportunities for underprivileged students to attend the Peabody Prep.

The veteran ensemble is San Francisco’s Volti, which for the past 32 years has been at the vanguard of new choral music in the United States under the direction of its founder, Robert Geary. Their season finale will be presented three times (Friday, May 13 at 8:00 p.m. at the Berkley City Club; Saturday, May 14 at 8:00 p.m. at First Lutheran Church in Palo Alto; and Sunday, May 15 at 4:00 p.m. at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco’s Presidio) and features works commissioned by Volti, two of which, Matthew Barnson’s Genesis and Elliot Gyger’s voice (and nothing more), are world premieres.

Barnson composed his Genesis, a re-interpretation of the biblical story of creation through poetry, at Volti’s Choral Arts Laboratory, its annual commissioning and residency program where composers under 35 work with Volti’s singers, Artistic Director Robert Geary and Composer in Residence Mark Winges to create a new work for choir in a workshop setting, culminating in its premiere at the end of a given season. Barnson describes Genesis as “three tableaux that are independent of one another but dependent upon the Book of Genesis to give them meaning. Each is a subversive exegesis upon the original story of creation and posits a slight, but vital alternative in the narrative, affecting the outcome of the myth in ways that are sometimes insignificant (but poignant) and sometimes darkly different. Each of the poets whose work I set refracted my original intentions. For instance, the outer movements of the triptych actually retell stories from the book of Genesis. In the second, middle movement I set Richard Siken, a poet whose ecstatic and anxious book, Crush is replete with Biblical images. Beyond the images of apples (knowledge but death) is the feature that the last two poems share: death deferred.”

Elliot Gyger’s voice (and nothing more) reflects the composer’s interest in “language and communication in their own right.” The original germ for what would become voice (and nothing more) was planted ten years ago, when Gyger was a graduate student at Harvard University, where he heard a lecture by musicologist Mauro Calcagno. “Occasionally as a composer,” one encounters by chance a piece of text (or other extra-musical stimulus) for which one may have no immediate use, but which makes such a strong impact that one files it away for future reference. Among the many fascinating sources which Calcagno discussed was a passionate diatribe on the transience of the voice from Emanuele Tesauro’s La metafisica del niente (The Metaphysics of Nothing).

“When Bob approached me to write a piece for Volti’s 2010-2011 season, I decided that the time was ripe for Tesauro’s words, which demanded a similarly flamboyant treatment. I considered a setting in two or even more languages, but decided that the original Italian was powerful and direct enough on its own – as well as being far more naturally vocal than any English rendering could be. The piece is, however, elaborately layered in purely musical terms. The voices are divided into three
groups: a solo quartet is flanked by two SATB choirs, allowing for subtle variations in weight and emphasis, as well as antiphonal and spatial effects.

“At least on face value, Tesauro’s polemic is vehemently anti-voice -nothing is more worthless, more vile, more imperfect. I originally thought that I needed to pair it with something else that saw the voice in a more positive light. However, I eventually realized that this was unnecessary: one of the delightful paradoxes about the text is the way it exploits so powerfully that which it claims to despise, i.e. the power of the voice. Tesauro’s rhetoric is not merely literary, but demands to be spoken aloud, with its compelling use of imagery, alliteration, and above all rhythm (repetition and acceleration).

“The title is similarly ambiguous. The phrase is a rough translation of the Latin saying “Vox praetereaque nihil”, which is normally used to mean “all style and no substance” – but it can also be read as an expression of amazement at the ability of a great orator (or indeed a great choir!) to achieve so much with voice (and nothing more).”