Vice Versa

viola – Maya Felixbrodt

4.1 surround electronic tape РAur̩lie Lierman

date of creation: June 28th 2015, Seattle (USA)

inspired by “Le Cosmicomiche – Giochi Senza Fine” by Italo Calvino (1965)

The premiere of Vice Versa took place in Twin Willow Gardens in Snowhomish (near Seattle – WA, USA) on July 4th 2015, in a private outdoors performance as part of the wedding ceremony of Diana Gergel and Siddharth Rajaram.

Vice Versa is a composition for pre-recorded viola and electronic tape. Inspired by Sid and Diana’s unique personas, the beautiful home they live in (in Queen Anne in Seattle), their super cute dog Chomsky and also some of their common interest as a couple (science and literature with Italo Calvino being one of their favorite writers).

Italo Calvino managed to capture the beauty of science into a poetic form, especially in his masterpiece and scientific fable Cosmicomics. Calvino portrays here two kids as main characters, who are at the same time the two most beautiful wiseacres I encountered in literature.

These two form a fantastic duo and go by the lyrical names Pfwfp and Qfwfq. The two characters are always busy doing two things: playing with marbles/atoms somewhere up there in outer space.  And arguing who’s winning the game or not, … And it’s actually the stubborn arguing that brings them together, that gets them on the same track. Literally. And what inspired me most for the new composition is one  image towards the end of Game With No Ends:

all you see is how Pfwfp and Qfwfq are racing together through the emptiness of the universe, in a space where time and dimension no longer matter, and they have slowly but surely come to realization that they are in this race together, no longer as kids, but now bonded as grown ups,  for eternity.

Vice Versa was commissioned by Diana Gergel and Siddharth Rajaram