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solo works

My Old Gramophone #1
piano and electronics (optional live video)

 

Year: 2019 | Duration: 9'30" aprox.

Music and Video: Raquel García-Tomás

 

Commissioned by FUNDACIÓ CATALUNYA LA PEDRERA

 

World premiere: 15 December 2019 by Albert Cano Smit

Place: La Pedrera Casa Milà

This is a fragment

"Amb aquesta obra s’inicia el cicle My Old Gramophone, compost especialment per a les Residències Musicals 2019-2020 de la Fundació Catalunya–La Pedrera. De reminiscències impressionistes, My Old Gramophone #1 pretén evocar a l’oient l’acte d’escolta d’un gramòfon a partir de la “mecanització” de l’intèrpret. Dita mecanització s’aconsegueix reproduint els errors que normalment esdevenen en aquest tipus de dispositius, com per exemple el salt de l’agulla que produeix la repetició un fragment curt de manera reiterada (el que avui dia anomenem loop). A mesura que avança l’obra, aquests bucles o loops  passaran de ser percebuts com a errors a ser absorbits pel discurs musical. L’obra va acompanyada d’una vídeo-creació que emfatitza el gest del pianista i reincideix en els salts temporals que experimenta el discurs musical."

Solo
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
piano and electronics

 

Year: 2014 | Running Time: 09:17

Music and Video: Raquel García-Tomás

Illustration and screeningplay: Ainhoa Sarabia

 

Commissioned by OSIC (Cultural Department of the Government of Catalonia)

 

World premiered: 8 November 2015 by Rei Nakamura

Place: Vitoria (Bernaola Festival). 

 

Further performances:

Reid Concert Hall, Edinburgh

Piano+ Festival: Imatronik ZKM, Karlsruhe

Festival Mixtur 2015, Barcelona

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – for piano, tape and video-animation is a multidisciplinary work that is born out of the collaboration of composer Raquel García-Tomás and illustrator Ainhoa Sarabia.

Its creation has come from a very specific purpose: achieving an own audio-visual language that, on the one hand, relates the work with the cinematic context of the beginning of the XXth century and, on the other hand, counts on the current expressive and technical resources. All disciplines involved have been treated accordingly to such aesthetics: black and white illustration, intertitles within the video –as in silent movies–, a piano on stage which interacts in a extreme mimetic way with the projection and merges with the tape’s sonic microcosms, which make us travel more than a century ago… All of this has been done in this way to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the first publication of Lewis Carroll’s novel.

This work has been specially created for Rei Nakamura’s project Movement to sound, sound to Movement and funded by OSIC (Generalitat de Catalunya).

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
piano and electronics

 

Year: 2014 | Duration: 9'17"

Music and Video: Raquel García-Tomás

Illustration and screeningplay: Ainhoa Sarabia

 

Commissioned by OSIC (Cultural Department of the Government of Catalonia)

 

World premiere: 8 November 2015 by Rei Nakamura

Place: Vitoria (Bernaola Festival). 

 

Further performances:

Reid Concert Hall, Edinburgh

Piano+ Festival: Imatronik ZKM, Karlsruhe

Festival Mixtur 2015, Barcelona

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – for piano, tape and video-animation is a multidisciplinary work that is born out of the collaboration of composer Raquel García-Tomás and illustrator Ainhoa Sarabia.

Its creation has come from a very specific purpose: achieving an own audio-visual language that, on the one hand, relates the work with the cinematic context of the beginning of the XXth century and, on the other hand, counts on the current expressive and technical resources. All disciplines involved have been treated accordingly to such aesthetics: black and white illustration, intertitles within the video –as in silent movies–, a piano on stage which interacts in a extreme mimetic way with the projection and merges with the tape’s sonic microcosms, which make us travel more than a century ago… All of this has been done in this way to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the first publication of Lewis Carroll’s novel.

This work has been specially created for Rei Nakamura’s project Movement to sound, sound to Movement and funded by OSIC (Generalitat de Catalunya).

間 [ma]
solo percussion

 

Year: 2014 | Duration: 6 min.

Commissioned by the RCM andthe  Royal Academy of Arts.

 

World premiere: 10 March 2014.

Royal Academy of Arts (London)

Performer: Ana Gasco

 

間 [ma] explores the idea of void, one of the most relevant concepts in Kengo Kuma’s architecture. Raquel has responded to this captivating installation by creating a work for solo castanets that reconsiders how we perceive space and proportion. Inspired by the architect’s concept weak architecture, which investigates how the human body behave to light structures, the composer has articulated her music through a multisensory experience that involves vision, memory, touch and sound.

 

Wondjina
bass clarinet, live electronics, video and dance

 

Year: 2013 | Duration: 6 min. aprox.

 

Music and video by Raquel García-Tomás

 

Commissioned by OSIC (Cultural Department of the Government of Catalonia)

 

World premiere: 21 June 2013

Bass Clarinet: Víctor de la Rosa

Dance: Anne-Gaëlle Thiriot

Live electronics: Raquel García-Tomás

Wondjina is a work for bass clarinet, live electronics and video rooted in Australian Aboriginal culture. The Wondjina –most commonly known as Wandjina– were rain spirits who influenced the landscape and its inhabitants. When they felt the closeness of death, they would search for a place in the caves to die. Once they had, they would decorate the walls of those caves.

In this work, the main aim was to relate the bass clarinet with the Australian didgeridoo and explore the iconography of the wondjina in a video landscape that reinterprets the 3800-year-old paintings and responds with a contemporary view of tribal rites.

tangible - Raquel García-Tomás
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tangible
piano and tape

 

Year 2011-2012 | Duration: 7'16" aprox.

 

Commissioned by Mireia Vendrell, Stuttgart

World premiere: 20th of February 2012. KammerMusikSaal - Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart.

 

Performer: Mireia Vendrell

This recording: Live recording by Mireia Vendrell at Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall. *UK premiere. Royal College of Music of London –

"From the Soundhouse"

 

To hear the actual quality of the tape go to this link

tangible relates the relationship between a pianist and an apparently ephemeral material, which emerges from the heart of the instrument and grows to become a corporeal substance. The performer interacts with the rising sound allowing it to flourish and contributing to its development through the interaction and the dialogue.

While the pianist causes reactions in the electronics, the electronics initiate a symbiotic relationship with the performer. In other words, they bring new musical ideas which the pianist takes and develops. All together creates an engaging atmosphere in where the piano sound is merged with the electronics achieving an inseparable communion.

Tercer Manuscrito Eufónico - Raquel García-Tomás
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Tercer Manuscrito Eufónico
clarinet and tape

 

Year: 2008 | Duration: 6'30" aprox.

Performed and commissioned by Víctor de la Rosa

 

World premiere: 27th of March 2008.

"Joves intèrprets de Catalunya" Concert series

L'Auditori de Barcelona | Temporada 2007/08

 

*Live recording by Víctor de la Rosa

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