dedicating my task to times,
not my time to the task

dedicating my tears to hope,
not my hope to tear up

dedicating my awe to the little,
nothing is more awesome than the little

dancing with a child
and becoming a child of the God of dance

drinking with a thinker
and becoming a thought of the wine-grower

and living with all these words
and becoming their pondering silence

November 2015

 

RENA MEYER WIEL, author and sound and silence practicioner in the areas of vocal art, music and performance, composition, video art and installation, and alternative healing practitioner for integrative body and voice work.

Various activities surrounding sound art and silence, academic studies of languages and the humanities, studies of classical and contemporary song at the Cologne Conservatory of Music.

Vocal performance as an expression of contemporary witnessing – in the form of performances, texts and compositions for landscapes, memorial places and architectures, moments in time and for people.

Previous Ensemble Works: cd and live productions with White Canvas duo and quartet, live vocal improvisation opera project with Bobby Mc Ferrin, performance collaboration with Herman van Veen, incidental music and vocal improvisation concerts.

PROJECTS

Hintergrund Intro

PROJECTS

SPOKEN-WORD-PERFORMANCEAPPLIED SILENCE PERFORMANCEINSTALLATION ARTVOCAL IMPROVISATIONPERFORMANCE & COMPOSITIONINCIDENTAL MUSICWHITE CANVASCD ALL THAT MATTERSWORKSHOPS AND LECTORS´ TRAININGSALTERNATIVE HEALING PRACTICE

SPOKEN-WORD-PERFORMANCE

Hintergrund Spoken-Word-Performance

SPOKEN-WORD-PERFORMANCE

„Remember this story“, Rabbi Bunam used to add, „and bear in mind what it tells you:
that there is something you can´t find anywhere in the world, and that there is a place where you can find it.“
Martin Buber, out of: The Way Of Man: According To The Teachings Of Hasidim

 

SPOKEN-WORD-PERFORMANCE - Recital and Soundscapes - vocal performance of poetry or various subject-matters in concert

APPLIED SILENCE PERFORMANCE

Hintergrund Applied Silence Performance

APPLIED SILENCE PERFORMANCE

What is it that makes you pause and contemplate?
Qu´ est-ce qui vous fait marquer un temps d´ arrêt?
¿Qué es lo que te hace parar y reflexionar?
Waarvoor zou je still blijven staan?
Wofür halten Sie inne?

This question motivated my street-performance SILENCE, traveling to various cities in Europe in summer 2018. The question in its own timeless relevance represented my inner answer to contemporary global events. "What is it that makes you pause and contemplate" as a dialogue with people I don´t know, living at various places in very various ways, and who encounter the question on the street maybe by chance and might refer to it or not, might even not perceive that it is there, or do very well perceive it and then maybe pick it up just in thoughts, but maybe then also reply in writing down their answers on the paper band placed on the ground during the performance. The question was raised sculpturally and in the language of performance, in Silence and without a spoken word. It was written down on the paper band, inviting people to write down their answers. The performance tour was dedicated to the phenomenon of a daily event and its energy of a momentary encounter, inspiring us to grasp it or not. The Presence Performance SILENCE intended to move a space of Silence through the urban spaces that people were welcome to refer to or not.

The exact places in the cities and the times of performance during the day fell into place along the movement of the tour, with only a very short-term information appearing on my homepage before.

In the meantime, during the pandemic situation over the last years, showing the timeless actuality of both the performance question and all its collected answers in the urban space, a "FILM-CONCERT" has been created and performed in Germany, several times. It is documenting the art project - as a compilation and presentation of the performance results in a movie documentary with simutaneous live concert. An indeed moving testimonial of contemporary events, thoughts, emotions and spontaneous interaction.

 

Presence Performance SILENCE with Rena Meyer Wiel
may to july 2018 in settled weather conditions in the urban public space

LOGROÑO  28.5. * Calle Portales, 17.00

PAMPLONA 3.6. * Plaza del Castillo, 17.00

PARIS 10.6. * Rue St Merri / Centre Georges Pompidou, 12.00

STUTTGART 18.6. * Königstrasse / Schlossplatz, 11.00

MUNICH 19.6. * Marienplatz, 17.00

KONSTANZ 21.6. * Münsterplatz, 12.00

ZURICH 24.6. * Weinplatz / Rathausbrücke, 15.00

BERN 25.6. * Münstergasse / Mosesbrunnen, 17.00

BASEL 26.6. * Marktplatz, 15.00

FREIBURG 27.6. * Martinstor, 15.00

AMSTERDAM 3.7. * Dam, 15.00

LONDON 10.7. * South Bank, The Queen´s Walk / Gabriel´s Wharf, 12.00

BERLIN 28.7. * Museumsinsel, 17.00

BONN 31.7. * Münsterplatz / Vivatsgasse, 17.00

INSTALLATION ART

Hintergrund INSTALLATION ART

INSTALLATION ART

>>  12 EXPRESSIONS OF MUSIC  <<

Installation Art with old brick forms, pendulum-/objects and photos,
a vocal performance documentary 1995 - 2019 in twelve perspectives:

I.   SILENCE
"ABSENT VIOLIN" for voice, violin corps and silence; 1995
II.   MOVEMENT
"PERPETUAL" for voice, movement and ripping fabric; 1997
III.   PRISM
"SOUND GLYPHS - VOICE IN PRISMA" for voice, soundscapes and waving ribbons; 2000

IV.   TIME
"TWENTY MILLION YEARS OR SO", Installaton for voice, body and whale vertebras; Performance by Eva Schmale / Rena Meyer Wiel; 1997
V.   DEATH AND LIFE
"TO BE WAS BEEN - CHANTS BETWEEN THE PORTALS" for voice, tamtam and soundscape; a vocal performance with texts from the Tibetan Book of Live and Death; 1999
VI.   RESURRECTION
"ALL AROSE. vocals, lyrics and instrumental voices"; 2006
VII.   CONTEMPORARY WITNESS
"ALL THAT MATTERS - songlines traveling contemporary sound art"; 2017
VIII.   COMMUNITY
"HUNDREDS OF WAYS", White Canvas Duo; 2010
and "CHARIAD", White Canvas Quartet; 2013
IX.   LANGUAGE
"TREE VOICES", vocal performance for a great birch tree, a goldsmith and a singer; 1999
X.   PRAYER
"CHANTS BEYOND THE SHORE OF TIMES", premiere of concert performance "World Prayers Performance Project"; 2010
XI.   PAUSING FOR A MOMENT
"WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES YOU PAUSE AND CONTEMPLATE?" cinema-concert with a documentary of the 2018 SILENCE Presence Performance Tour; 2019
XII.   SOUND
"THE TREE AFTER", Installation and Elegy Hiroshima 50; memorial performance for the 9th of august 1945; with Klaus Runze / Rena Meyer Wiel; 1995

______________________________

Installation Art "12 Expressions of Music" by Rena Meyer Wiel
at Frauenmuseum Bonn, as part of the exhibition project BTHVN in Bonn, 02.02.2020 to 08.11.2020

Frauenmuseum Bonn_Flyer_Beethovenjahr 2020_Ausstellung und Konzertprogramm

 

VOCAL IMPROVISATION

Hintergrund Vocal Improvisation

VOCAL IMPROVISATION

Man cannot discover new oceans
until he has the courage to lose sight of the shores.
André Gide

 

We speak many languages, there is song and music, we are surrounded by contemporary sound and noise and we have historical recordings. Music works and vocal performance are often first of all a dialogue with silence – and a perception of collaged layers of sound reality, an interweaving of texts and contexts, an act of listening and voicing of aswell inaudible movements and thoughts, traveling back and forth between moments in time.

Vocal improvisation can be experienced as the most immediate way of chant in resonance with space and audience, theme and situation. Performances forming in the current moment, in acoustic concert situations aswell as amplified and condensed by elements of live electronics, loops, soundscapes and lyrics. It sings.

WELTENGEDÄCHTNIS / WORLDS´ MEMORY – live, Klosterkirche / minster Lorch, Germany

PERFORMANCE & COMPOSITION

Hintergrund Performance & Composition

PERFORMANCE & COMPOSITION

This will be our reply to violence:
to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.
Leonard Bernstein

WPPP - WORLD PRAYERS PERFORMANCE PROJECT
concert performance with twelve sacred texts in twelve languages

The interweaving and toning synchrony of sacred texts representing different world religions and cultures symbolize an act of reaching hands between religions and spiritual traditions throughout times. Their harmonious encounter in the universal language of sound broaches the issue of dissolution of ideological demarcations towards a gesture of world peace.
The connection of the cultures´ textual expression is mirrored in the different worlds of sound meeting: classical vocalizing, archaic sounds and elements of world music and vanguard, various ethnical instruments accompanying the chants, and additional live electronics creating loops or pre-recorded soundscapes combining field recordings and instrumental voices.
The project has first been performed as a concert for voice and instrumental voices, and can also be drafted as workshop in collaboration with other musicians and singers.

Premiere at Hospitalkirche Stuttgart 2010, in collaboration with: Rolf Beydemüller, guitars / Alexander Lauterwasser, visual live-water-sound-projections

 

PERFORMANCES FOR VOICE AND VISUAL ELEMENTS
compositions with scenic accents for voice and live electronics, i.a.:

  • KLANG GLYPHEN / SOUND GLYPHS – VOICE IN PRISMA
    for vocals, sound collage and waving ribbons / premiere: Lahore, Pakistan 2000
  • TO BE WAS BEEN – GESÄNGE ZWISCHEN DEN TOREN / CHANTS BETWEEN THE PORTALS
    for voice, tam-tam and sound collage – a performance with excerpts from the Tibetan Book of Life and Death / premiere: Münsterplatz Bonn 1999
  • BAUM STIMMEN / TREE TUNING
    for a beech, a singer and a goldsmith / premiere: Siegburg 1999
  • DAZU DER MOND / THERETO THE MOON
    composition for a walk on an altar and singing voice / premiere: Cologne 1999
  • RITUAL SIEBEN / RITUAL SEVEN
    seven chants on seven evenings for violin, fire and voice in a bunker / premiere: above-ground bunker Cologne Ehrenfeld 1996

INCIDENTAL MUSIC

Hintergrund Incidental Music

INCIDENTAL MUSIC

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
Friedrich Nietzsche

SIDDHARTA SOUNDSCAPE / about the incidental music score to the staging of „Siddharta“: Music comprehends the possibility of being accessible to another realm, and to draft the interweaving voices of a sounding cosmos flowing through one another – so in the composition to the staging of „Siddharta“, the birds´ calls become aswell the monks´ voices in their gathering, and the singing of the human voice becomes likewise the river´s voice. The music is not intended to accompany and comment the story line, but enters the scene as an invisible teammate and engages in a living and perceiving dialogue with the represented persons. Therein, the music stands for our own accessibility to the essence of being, and occurs throughout the staging more and more as an audibly and inaudibly present element, and as a growing anticipation of what is called AUM or OM.
Staging of Herman Hesse´s „Siddharta“ by and with Heike Bänsch und Andreas Kunz, information and booking: info(at)heikebaensch.de

BEYOND BORDERS, composition for a stage performance by Heike Bänsch and Bruno Tendera, premiered in the framework of Mediensommerakademie Bonn 2011 on the topic of political journalism. BEYOND BORDERS is a memorial performance and homage to the worldwide media correspondents who have been murdered for political reasons. According to an indication by Reporters Without Borders, in the last ten years at least 695 professional journalists have been killed associated with their work.
Performance duration: ca 20 min.

WHITE CANVAS

Hintergrund White Canvas

WHITE CANVAS

There are hundreds of ways to kneel down and kiss the ground.
Mevlana Dschelaladdin Rumi

WHITE CANVAS – a project in duo and quartet – connecting archaic and modern sounds, songs and improvisation

WHITE CANVAS sounds many worlds, interculturally aswell as in the combination of individual musicians with different backgrounds.
Various videos and sounds of WHITE CANVAS productions can be visited on: www.white-canvas.de.

  • VIDEO White Canvas in concert, Theater im Ballsaal, Bonn, Germany
  • DUO: Rena Meyer Wiel_voice and live electronics / Rolf Beydemüller_guitars, soundscapes, loops and more
  • QUARTET: Rena Meyer Wiel_voice / Rolf Beydemüller_guitars / Christoph Selbach_piano / Christoph Schumacher_percussion

CD ALL THAT MATTERS

Hintergrund CD All That Matters

CD ALL THAT MATTERS

Recreating, that is offering resistance.
Offering resistance, that is recreating.
Stéphane Hessel

 

ALL THAT MATTERS
songlines traveling contemporary sound art*

newhearlandrecords / ALL THAT MATTERS, this album is a remarkable piece of sound art and dedicated contemporary witness of our times, composed and produced by vocal and performance artist Rena Meyer Wiel. An audiobook interweaving field recordings, songs, lyrics, quotes and resonances to historical events, past as well as contemporary, with a general reflectiveness layered into compositions of collaged music becoming an own and personal language of reflectiveness. To the artist, this „contemporary sound art biotope“ represents a process of finding language for contexts of speechlessness.

All in all, the very diversity of collaged pieces leave a consolatory mark although not hiding away the eyes from the irresolvable questions facing us in the world. With the album ALL THAT MATTERS, Rena Meyer Wiel succeeds in combining contemporary sound art, the art of song, a reflective approach to present challenges and the listening to a multiply threatened world. Her sound thoughts concerning humankind carry a passionate vision for an integrated and healing perspective.

 

Tracklist:

  1. All That Matters (6:42)
  2. Fire, Read My Book (6:29)
  3. Da, wo der Mensch steht (6:59)
  4. Theologische Realenzyklopädie (0:58)
  5. Vom Paradies (2:08)
  6. Beyond Borders 2016 (7:04)
  7. Regen Regen (4:32)
  8. Falls sich die Dinge immer wiederholen (0:44)
  9. What Is Deeper – The Ocean Or Hope (7:09)
  10. Arctic Lament (7:37)
  11. Spiegel Epilog (3:40)

Total: 54:15

album cover All That Matters

CD  12,- + shipping

Available via newhearland records and Rena Meyer Wiel,
since september 2017 also for order via Amazon and jpc.

WORKSHOPS AND LECTORS´ TRAININGS

Hintergrund Workshops and Lectors´ Trainings

WORKSHOPS AND LECTORS´ TRAININGS

Rabbi Pinchas said: "When someone sings and can´t raise his voice, and someone else comes singing with him and raises the voice, then he aswell can raise his voice. This is the mystery of spirit inhering in spirit."
Martin Buber: Tales Of The Hasidim

Vocal improvisation workshops and lectors´ trainings are educational formats surrounding an integrated study and work with voice and text, including body perception and spatial awareness. The Workshops are about perception and self awareness with the possibilities of vocal work, and of experiencing our „listening voice“. This phenomenon „listening voice“ exceeds the possibility to find and intone an inner expression of ourselves: Vocalization and finding voice also represent speech and song as a formless form of finding language itself. And this implies also: finding language as an expression of what we hear, and even only get to hear once we enunciate or vocalize it. As we sing or intone, we are not only in dialogue face to face with each other and with ourselves, but also with the sounding and silent connection and context we all together belong to. Workshops for vocal improvisation either focus on body and healing work or in form and content on literature resonating with contexts of contemporary events. In this regard, vocal work can be seen as a process of finding language or answers to that what leaves us otherwise perplexed in our world and life.

ALTERNATIVE HEALING PRACTICE

Hintergrund Alternative Healing Practice

ALTERNATIVE HEALING PRACTICE

(…) Just don´t grow weary,
rather to the miracle,
silently,
as if to a little bird,
hold out your palm.
Hilde Domin

What does one thing have to do with the other – making music and being music? Rather a lot.
About facilitating our life melodies when turning dissonant or remaining in a state of caesura for a longer and considerable time, there is more information about alternative healing practice within my artistic work - room for integrative body and vocal work in the areas of dialogue, performance and therapy, with cranio-sacral SELF waves and vocal teaching elements: www.earthmerged.com.