Rusalochka
premiered at “Sounds Around Me” festival, Vienna, 2019
Performed by Victoria Cheah (Electronics)
Rusalochka seeks to imitate the traditional celebration of Mermaid’s Easter in Ukrainian village culture. People from the Polissya region (Northern Ukraine) have special songs and rituals for this feast, which is celebrated on the first Thursday after the Holy Trinity holiday. The piece combines recordings made in the Chornobyl zone, preserved in the folklore archive of the Drevo ensemble, with electronic sounds. “I wanted the sounds of singing to imitate each other, and respond to each other, creating a new sonorous aesthetics, as well as to show how beautiful traditional Ukrainian singing is.”