Truth, reconciliation and 100 voices

July 5, 2007 5:26 PM

"REwind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape and Testimony" debuts tomorrow night in New York. South African composer Philip Miller listened to hundreds of hours of audio cassettes from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings - the testimonies of torture victims, as well as their torturers who were given pardon in exchange for their testimony - and composed music around the samples he selected. It premiered in Capetown in late 2006; utterly haunting excerpts available here and here.
posted by jbickers (7 comments total)

In a similar vein, a friend and I really enjoyed Amandla: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony a few years ago. I still pull the soundtrack up in iTunes every once in awhile.
posted by litfit at 7:58 PM on July 5, 2007

Now that's the MetaFilter I'm talkin about. This would go well with John Adams or Steve Reich. I'd imagine that the full performance is quite obliterating. Powerful stuff. Thanks for posting.
posted by Area Control at 8:03 PM on July 5, 2007

Thanks so much for posting this- I live six blocks away and had no idea this was happening.
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 8:40 PM on July 5, 2007

Kickass link. jbickers ftw
posted by allaboutgeorge at 9:24 PM on July 5, 2007

Another interesting example of this is the piece by Scott Johnson on the Kronos Quartet album Short Stories, using a recording of a talk about peace by I.F. Stone.
posted by lorimer at 12:30 PM on July 6, 2007

"Remember that guy? John, John somebody?"
posted by Area Control at 3:35 PM on July 9, 2007

Sorry, meant to do this. And it's been a long time. Maybe there really was just one John.
Remember that guy...
posted by Area Control at 3:41 PM on July 9, 2007