_Pendulum Choir_ is an original choral piece for nine a cappella voices and 18 hydraulic jacks. The choir stands on tilting platforms, constituting a living, sonorous body. That body expresses itself through various physical states. Its plasticity varies at the mercy of its sonority. It varies between abstract sounds, repetitive sounds and lyrical or narrative sounds. The bodies of the singers and their voices play with and against gravity. They brush against and avoid each other, creating subtle vocal polyphonies. Or, supported by electronic sounds, they break their cohesion and burst into lyrical flight or fold up into an obsessional and dark ritual. The organ travels from life to death in a robotic allegory where the technological complexity and the lyricism of the moving bodies combine into a work with Promethean accents.

In 2006 we created _ex pharao_, a rewriting of the opera _Moses und Aaron_ by Arnold Schönberg. It was rewritten in the form of a new orchestral piece in which visitors can modify the sound and dramaturgic parameters in real time. These modifications are operated by means of a mechanical installation. The visitor is simultaneously the orchestra conductor and one of the actors of the opera.

With _Pendulum Choir_ we continue our research on the possible relations and interactions between orchestral music and movement. In this new production, we concentrate on an a cappella work.

Within the continuum of our research, the idea of creating a moving choir came from our intention to instigate a relation between movement and sound that was as close fitting and natural as possible. In _Pendulum Choir_, the mechanical set-up engenders physical constraints on the singers and, as a consequence, on the way they sing. This creates new and unexpected sonorities, a plastic parameter that we decided to incorporate in the musical writing. Similarly, we sought to include phenomena due to gravity, gravity forces, and acceleration forces on the singers. These phenomena are well-known in mechanics but still foreign to musical compositions.

The concept of a mass of sonorous and moving human bodies, going through a natural distortion under the effect of physical forces brings to mind a living organ. It evokes a muscle or a living organism emitting sounds in relation to its distortions. In order to write a plastic and musical piece that has homogeneity, we used the representation of a lung. Each singer represents one of the lung’s alveoli. The flux of air going through the organ becomes sonorous, as sung by the singers. The theme of the musical piece is the breath.

The link between the bodies of the singers is plastic, elastic. The movement of the choir constantly challenges the cohesion of the voices and their density. The sound material of breath is basically abstract and repetitive, but it can also be considered as verbal and narrative. The choir blows and sings the breath. It travels from life to death, exhales, suffocates, loses its equilibrium while recounting its sensation of the last breath on its descent to hell. This musical part is based on poems from Virgil, Ovid and Horace. The movements support the narrative. The work evolves between abstraction and lyricism.

Photos: Xavier Voirol

Michel Décosterd (CH), born 1969, worked as architect in Berlin and Weimar (D, 1994-96). Since 1997 he has been working in plastic arts and in architecture and develops and constructs sound machines. In 1997 Michel and his brother André Decosterd founded the group Cod.Act. Since its inception, Cod.Act has collaborated with Jacques Décosterd (1936), an engineer in the fields of industrial computer sciences and automation systems.


André Décosterd (CH), born 1967. 1984/88 apprenticeship in organ building. Since 1997 has been working as a musician and composer. Specializes in computer programming of musical applications. Studies composition systems specific to contemporary music, in particular logarithmic composition. Carries out research on the interaction between man and machines. Produces musical works for contemporary ensembles and for the theater. Teaches in the Ejma.

In 1997 Michel and André founded the group Cod.Act. Since its inception, Cod.Act has collaborated with Jacques Décosterd (1936), an engineer in the fields of industrial computer sciences and automation systems.