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……and god invented dice (2002) for soprano, mezzo soprano, midi-keyboard, cello, percussion and sound collages Duration: 24:30
Music: Christina Viola Oorebeek
First performance: May 31, 2002 Feniks Festival in Anterwerp,
Revision: Doelenensemble 2004, the Doelen, Rotterdam Program Notes ……and God invented dice comtemplates the connection between mankind’s age–old attraction for gambling for money or goods, and the role of chance taking and calculated risks in practically every action man undertakes in daily life. It is as though man is constantly defying the adagium by Ovidius: Intra fortunam quisque debet manere suam The texts are by the 19th anonymous American gambler, Thomas Morley, Charles Bukowski and Stepane Mallarmé. These show a progression from the hopes and fears induced by gambling and the relativity of loss and gain, to the metaphysical concept of fate, so superbly expressed in Mallarmé’s poem, Un Coup de Des. The real life rhythms of card shuffling and dice throwing, played by the dealer (percussionsist) in a stylized card game with the singers in the theatrical intermezzo, are echoed in the instrumental music throughout the piece. The sound collages to be heard in gambling casino’s today, including the electronic jingles and mechanical sounds of the game machines going off at random times, the muzak, lounge acts and the voices of players offer a lush random carpet used in the prologue and during transitions in the piece. Las Vegas, in particular, provided the summum of sound material for this project
This piece was supported by the Dutch composition fund / het fonds voor de scheppende toonkunst and by steim, thanks, in particular to Daniel Schorno, artistic director of STEIM
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