A Bird Calls You to Moscow (SIFA v2.020)

A Bird Calls You To Moscow
An audio experience for a solo wonder
Commissioned by Singapore International Festival of Arts SIFA v2.020, October 2020

Synopsis:
If you can believe it, it is millennia in the future. You are walking amongst ancient ruins. A koel calls. You hear ghosts. A Musician says his goodbyes. A Lover’s heart breaks. These are the psychic traces of a city long gone.

A Bird Calls You To Moscow is an audio drama to be experienced on the move. Across three episodes and accompanied by the piano music of Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, you are invited to see, hear and feel, as the role requires, and simply walk with yourself. The musical works featured in A Bird Calls You To Moscow were specially recorded by pianist Albert Tiu.

Instructions to the listener:

This audio drama is designed to be listened to using headphones and on the move. Begin the journey with the first Pre-Amble tape, before moving sequentially from each episode to the next. You may choose to listen to them all in one sitting, or across three sessions. How engaged you wish to be depends on how deep you want to commit to your role as an archeologist of your surrounding space and passing time. Escape your world, or actively draw sensory connections between this world and yours.

Here, we suggest some pairings of locations to go with each episode:

Episode 1: A room where love sleeps, or that of an ex-lover’s
Episode 2: A park where the trees are old
Episode 3: A circular ride on public transport

Each episode is approximately 30 minutes.

Born in Cebu, Philippines, Albert Tiu (pianist) has been called “an artist of uncommon abilities” by American Record Guide. His Centaur recording, “Grand Russian”, pairing Tchaikovsky’s Grand Sonata and Rachmaninoff’s First Sonata, was cited in ARG: “Even with some legendary competition in this repertoire, Tiu stands tall with his interpretations and technical accomplishment.” Currently an Associate Professor of Piano at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore, Tiu is a graduate of the Juilliard School, he has performed with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Hamburg Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic and Winnipeg Symphony. In 2005, Tiu gave the Singapore premiere of Samuel Barber’s Piano Concerto with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Known for his innovative programming, he has presented thought-provoking thematic solo recitals: “Nocturnal Fantasies”, “Bee Flat”, and “Chopin – Before & Beyond”.

Awarded the National Arts Council Scholarship, Jing Ng (Sound Designer) graduated with first class honours from Rose Bruford College (UK) specialising in Performance Sound. Jing focuses on the sonic experience for the audience – what, why and how you listen through a live performance.

Singapore credits: Lord of The Flies ; Red Sky ; Prism ; Fundamentally Happy ; Dragonflies ; The Father ; Late Company ; First Fleet ; Dear Elena ; The Son.
Nominated for Best Sound Design in the 2014 Off West End Theatre Awards for Outfox Productions’ Corpus Christi (UK).
Nominated for Best Sound Design in the 2018 Singapore Straits Times Life Theatre Awards for Dragonflies (Pangdemonium Theatre Company Ltd).
Website: www.jingngsound.com
Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/jingsound

Julie Wee (Voice Actor) trained as an actor at The Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) Drama School in Melbourne. She’s played Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (Wild Rice); Cassius in Julius Caesar, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Miranda in The Tempest, Hero in Much Ado About Nothing and Bianca in Othello (SRT). Her other stage credits include Wild Rice’s Hotel; Checkpoint Theatre’s Normal, The Good The Bad and The Sholay and The Way We Go; Toy Factory’s To Kill A Mockingbird (Scout) and The Crucible (Elizabeth Proctor); Skinned Knee Productions The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband and Take Off Productions Mosaic. She works as a host and as a professional voiceover artist who runs her own home studio. Companies that use her voice include Visa, SK-II, Olay, Nespresso and McDonalds. This year, aside from numerous voiceovers, Julie worked on SRT’s Classic Stories series and The Book of Mothers radio play with T:>Works.

Brendon Fernandez’s (Voice Actor) recent theatre credits include The Importance of Being Earnest, MERDEKA / 獨立 / சுதநததிரம், Displaced Persons’ Welcome Dinner, Underclass / 贱民, and Hotel. He was also in the radio play The Book of Mothers, part of T:>Works’ Festival of Women: N.O.W. 2020, earlier this year. He’s done voiceovers for radio, television, and online advertisements for clients like DBS, Mastercard, Oral-B, and Telfast. You’ll also be able to hear him on Downstairs Season 2, a local animated series for adults that follows the surreal adventures of wacky Kopitiam stall owners, premiering soon on meWATCH. And on the audiobook recording of Ming Cher’s classic novel Spider Boys, available now on Storytel.com.

Instagram: @brendon_fernandez | Facebook: fb.me/page.brendon.fernandez