Liza Lim / Hanspeter Kyburz

Archive 2005

Music

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Liza Lim
Mother Tongue for soprano and fifteen instruments (2005)
on Poems of Patricia Sykes
Festival d’Automne à Paris commission,
Ensemble intercontemporain and Ensemble Elision
Hanspeter Kyburz
The Voynich Cipher Manuscript
for twenty-four voices and ensemble (1995)
Piia Komsi, soprano
Cappella Amsterdam / Daniel Reuss, choirmaster
Ensemble intercontemporain
Jonathan Nott, conductor
Coproduced by Cité de la musique,
Ensemble intercontemporain, Festival d’Automne à Paris
With the support of Australian Gouvernment through the Australia Council,
Pro Helvetia and Sacem

The idea of the musician as poet, oracle and archaeologist lies at the crux of these works. Here, the Holy Grail is language – endangered dialects such as that spoken in Lim’s parents’ province of Fujian, in China, or that of the aborigines in Australia, where Lim grew up. Mother Tongue resurrects esoteric or lost words from Finnish to Navajo, while Kyburz contemplates the « Voynich » manuscript, whose mysterious writing has eluded decryption.