Όναρ

This music represents my initial attempts (since 1987) to incorporate the possibilities of music technology into my composiitons.

The whole of the orchestral part, the sounds, and the manner of playing of the instruments (the “interpretatio”) have been generated by and structured in the computer. Still, they provided in the final result the necessary space for the human voice.

In “ONAR” I ‘have used electronics in musical styles in which usually electronics are not used: musical styles with no constant beat, with a lot of rhythmic fluctuations – “accelerandi”, “ritenuti”, “rubati”, etc.
I wanted to experiment with what these tools can do, how expressively can they be used in a lyric work.

As far as the style of the pieces is concerned, I opted for “references”, as a kind of tribute to various kinds of music that appeal to me. So the pieces contain references to the “sound – style” of Hadzidakis, Debussy, De Falla, folk songs, classical song, romantic period, etc.

As for the lyrics, their musical setting was based on the concept of a kind of dramatic “staging”.
So, I divided each Hariklia’s poem into shorter parts, “images”, which are narrated and “staged” by voice and orchestra.
Neither of these two elements may be said to play a more important part than the other – this is why I prefer to call “ONAR” a work for voice and orchestra, rather than a collection of songs.

This frequently resulted in strange, unusual forms.
Each piece can be viewed as a sequence, a “collage” of tiny, diverse parts of music connected under the framework characterising each piece.
This was another challenge by “ONAR”: to blend conceptually and aesthetically in each piece these little and different between them parts of music in a coherent whole.

Together with Katerina we decided to use her wonderful and many possibilities offering voice in a rather modest way.
We also decided to keep her interpretation out of emotional exaggerations, so that the balance between the voice and music roles would be better served.