»Lo! The Dim Shadows of the Night« is a piece for vocal duo and electroacoustic sound, in collaboration with MONOM for the large-scale 4DSOUND system, commissioned by STUK - House for Dance, Image & Sound for Ocean Of Sound 2023. Continuing the work which was started with her 2020 piece »Dies Irae«, Maria uses a modified form of traditional tonal harmonic language to invoke an uncanny middle ground between the classical western polyphonic vocal tradition and contemporary electronic music. The piece uses a mixture of algorithmically generated synthesis, created within the SuperCollider framework, and nighttime recordings of the Night Jar bird made in Skuleskogen in Marias home-region in Västernorrland, Sweden. The piece is sung by Ansis Bētiņš and Artūrs Čukurs from Riga, Latvia. The text is based on fragments from the hymn Ecce iam noctis. In addition to the fixed electronic components of the music, and the live vocal performance by Bētiņš and Čukurs, Maria joins the ensemble herself playing spatially processed pitched glasses, adding a ghostly shade to the dominant role of the human voices. Presented as Berlin premiere.
Before, the part »Water« of the multi-piece composition »The Elements: Aether, Earth, Fire, Water, and Wind« will be presented, likewise as a Berlin premiere. Created and spatialized by a group of artists under the MONOM umbrella, the compositions features contributions from William Russell, Shehryar Ahmad, Alessandra Denegri, Casimir Geelhoed, Louis McGuire, Jacob Kristin, Shaw Cain Hawkins, Temple Haze, Walter Nied, Alisa Reimer, Soneiro, Fernando Derks, Andy Aquarius, and Romain Azzaro. It conveys humanity's relationship with the four elements, including historic, philosophical, metaphysical, and societal entanglements.