_Extended / Dganit Elyakim

_Extended is a library in constant expansion covering extended technics on various instruments. It is a unique project created in collaboration with Halas and HaTeiva concert hall.

Extended’s first guest is the cellist Dan Weinstein, to whom we owe the idea of starting the library with natural harmonics for cello, an extended technic that, by now, is almost a convention and is used by composers quite frequently. It will be followed by a chapter on artificial harmonics, so stay tuned (and off-key!). If you want to skip the blah-blah just scroll down to listen and download the samples.

Listen to Spotlight

“You can’t imagine what that piece made me feel… but, what is it about actually?” This sentiment is probably the most common reaction I get to my piece, Spotlight. “Surely, there’s an element of prayer here?” or: “the piece tries to juxtapose between the divine and the earthly… right?” It’s usually at this point that I find myself fumbling in words, trying to express possible meanings the piece might or might not have: “The piece is about high and low, and emotions… and yet, about nothing; I mean, it’s about the performers… and how they make sound… even when they aren’t making any sound… it’s about their reactions to one another and their reactions to the tape sounds, or, or, uhm… silence… it’s about their own emotions, or what it means to be a performer…” It’s usually right around this point that I wish I hadn’t opened my mouth in the first place. I mean, yeah, sure, Spotlight is about all of these things, but yet about none of them. The truth of the matter is that the idea, as is usually the case with me, came as a feeling: The first image I had was that of two performers dancing in slow motion, in complete silence, under a direct light. Calling it a dance is perhaps misleading, because the performers are actually mimicking a performance, possibly even the same performance they are performing right there… CUT TO: stark darkness, sounds of emaciated House beats blasting from speakers, and slightly softer… those same two performers playing crude materials with a dark undertone. That was the idea that sparked Spotlight into being – and it is from this seed that an entire piece was constructed, in many ways to serve the aforementioned dramatic moment that both initiates and concludes the journey of the piece.