The Malta Independent on Sunday
A uniting sea and wrestling on stage
Following the success of last year’s Circuits Festival, the electronic music festival is back for the sixth consecutive year with more collaborations between artists from different countries and cultural backgrounds
Electronic Music Malta (EMM) is an NGO that promotes electronic music in Malta, and, through its annual Circuits Festival, it aims to bring together artists from different disciplines through the study and performance of this particular way of making music.
The Away from the Comfort Zone project – a continuation of the main theme of last year’s Circuits Festival and part of this year’s programme of events – does just what it says on the tin: it pairs up artists from different backgrounds, pulling them out of their comfort zone as they work together to create new performances. Two of this year’s pairings are mezzo soprano Clare Ghigo and Italian electronic musician Paolo Gatti and duo Ayn Il Widen who will be performing with Han Buhrs.
While Ghigo and Gatti approach music differently, they found common ground in a subject they share: the sea connecting Malta and Italy. Ghigo, known mostly as an opera singer locally, will be using her vocal talent in WaterMhole, a composition she created with Gatti. “WaterMhole is about water and its relation to time and space,” explains Ghigo. “Water is a medium that allows spatial movements, as does the sea separating and uniting Italy and Malta, as well as time shifts. To reflect the latter, we included extracts about water from poems written in different historical periods.”
Coming from different musical backgrounds and styles was not the only challenge Ghigo and Gatti had to overcome. “Preparation for WaterMhole was intense due to the lack of a musical structural departure, since we created everything from scratch,” says Ghigo. “I sent a number of raw recordings to Paolo and he transformed them into something quite extraordinary. Apart from that, a project of this kind also requires a lot of research and discussion.”
If putting two artists together is challenging, pairing a duo with a solo artist gets even more interesting. Kurt Buttigieg, one half of Belgium-based duo Ayn Il Widen with Carla Said, argues that the biggest challenge in collaborating with other artists lies in ensuring that enough space is left for the other performers. “This gives us all time to share silence and get to know each other, which is particularly important between Han and us as a duo,” says Buttigieg of Ayn il Widen’s collaboration with Dutch voice improviser Han Buhrs. “The possibility for mistakes is great, but hopefully they’ll be happy ones!”
Collaboration with an improviser might sound like a nerveracking proposition, but Buttigieg likens it to American wrestling. “American wrestling isn’t necessarily staged, in the sense that it often isn’t fully choreographed to the smallest detail,” he explains. “Rather, the performers get used to each other’s different moves and can therefore roll with the punches. Still, it is a performance somewhere between improvisation and rehearsal. In our case, we’ll be wrestling on stage, but wearing more than fluorescent jock straps!”
This edition of Circuits Festival comes after 18 months of virtual events and online interactions, which makes
performances like these even more special. “Initiatives like Circuits not only provide a space for artists to perform but, even more importantly, they establish a culture of live performance and of in-person meetings, which are so sorely needed post-Covid,” concludes Buttigieg. “This also gives lesser-known artists the opportunity to find their feet and be in contact with more established artists. Cooperation is essential.”
Circuits Festival is organised by the Maltese NGO Electronic Music Malta and is supported by Arts Council Malta. This event is part of the Spazju Kreattiv programme and is further supported by the GermanMaltese Circle – The Goethe Institut and Air Malta. For more information about the Circuits Festival line-up of artists, visit https://circuitsmalta.com/schedule/ Information can also be found on the Electronic Music Malta’s Facebook page and on kreattivita.org