RADIOPHONIC MONDAYS featuring ROBIN MINARD

ON AIR April 04, 2022, 00:00 - 23:50
RADIOPHONIC MONDAYS PRESENTS ROBIN MINARD (CA/DE)

AT EVERY EVEN HOUR
Kayapó – The Crying Chieftain Raoni

EVERY UNEVEN HOUR
The Qikiqtaaluk Deep Map

Kayapó – The Crying Chieftain Raoni (49’00)

In the spring of 2018, Robin Minard traveled to Brazil, where he participated in the week-long “Acampamento Terra Livre” (ATL) indigenous protests in Brasilia and then visited the Amazon rainforest north of Manaus. During the protests in Brasilia, Minard interviewed indigenous people, recorded their songs and stories, and documented their protests against the Brazilian government’s policies. These policies are causing the destruction of traditional indigenous lands and the extinction of indigenous people. Since the completion of the radio composition in 2019, the Covid crisis has only deepened the suffering of indigenous people in Brazil.

After the 2018 ATL protests, Minard traveled to the rainforest near Manaus to experience the beauty of the forest firsthand. With the help of a local guide, he spent a week collecting acoustic documentation. His field recordings paint vivid pictures of the forest: the sound of the sunrise from the depths of the rainforest, flocks of canaries gathering at sunset, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, bird calls, distant storms, gentle rain. The work interweaves field recordings with indigenous voices and stories, as well as lists of murders committed against indigenous peoples for reasons of prejudice, greed and politics. The work paints a tragic picture of Brazil’s indigenous people and their struggle for survival.

The work is dedicated to the Kayapó and Guarani people of the Amazon rainforest and the Kayapó leader Raoni Metuktire.

“Kayapó – The Crying Chieftain Raoni” was commissioned by Deutschlandfunk Kultur Berlin and WDR3 Cologne. 1st public presentations: 10.05.2019, Deutschlandfunk Kultur Berlin on the program Klangkunst (German version); 13.07.2019, WDR3 Cologne on the program Open Sounds (English version). In 2021, Brazilian sound and radio artist Janete El Haouli collaborated with Robin Minard to create a Portuguese version of the work that was widely broadcast on radio and Internet within Brazil.

The Qikiqtaaluk Deep Map (49’00)

"Qikiqtaaluk" is what the Inuit call Baffin Island, a large island situated directly across from Greenland in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. Robin Minard traveled there in the winter of 2012/2013 to search for traces of traditional Inuit culture. In and around the iced-in city of Iqaluit, Minard recorded a great variety of sounds. In “The Qikiqtaaluk Deep Map”, recordings of noise and silence, of acoustic cityscapes and baren frozen landscapes are intertwined with traditional Inuit throat singing and fragments of interviews with native people. ”The Inuit are traditionally a very patient people," says an Inuk from Iqaluit. "Therefore, they will have the patience to weave the old and the new into a modern way of life.”

“The Qikiqtaaluk Deep Map” was commissioned by Deutschlandfunk Kultur Berlin and WDR3 Cologne. 1st public presentations: 03.01.2014, WDR3 Cologne on the program Open Sounds; 31.01.2014, Deutschlandfunk Kultur Berlin on the program Klangkunst.

BIOGRAPHY

Robin Minard was born in Montreal in 1953. He studied music theory and composition in Canada and Paris. Since the early 1980s, his work has focused on electroacoustic composition and sound installation art. From 1992-1996 he was a lecturer in sound installation art at the Electronic Studio of the Technical University in Berlin. From 1997 to 2021 he was professor of electroacoustic composition and sound art at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt and Bauhaus University in Weimar, where he was also founder and director of the Studio for Electroacoustic Music (SeaM Weimar). His works, which include electroacoustic compositions, sound installations, sound sculptures and radio art productions, have been presented worldwide at festivals, in museums, on radio and in public spaces. In 2022 Robin Minard was designated Bonn City Sound Artist 2022 by the Beethoven Foundation Bonn.

SONIC MATTER thanks Deutschlandfunk Kultur Berlin and WDR3 Cologne for permission to broadcast Robin Minard's work. This Radiophonic Monday was made possible through a grant by SRKS - Stiftung für Radio und Kultur Schweiz and SWISSPERFORM