„Rena is not only a singer – she is an Artist of the Voice – transmitting her heart with the voice.“
Shinobu Kikucho, vocalist at opera project „Bobble – Listen so we can really hear!“ with Bobby McFerrin, 2009
„Freie Vokalkunst als eine persönliche Form, Zeitzeugin zu sein. (…) Es sind Gesänge, die direkt dem Weltengedächtnis zu entstammen scheinen. (…) Alles in dieser Musik ist gewachsen, ist von organischer Schönheit. Rena Meyer Wiel erschafft stimmlich begangene und begehbare Landschaften – voice-scapes.“
Rolf Beydemüller, 2006
„Vokalkunst, die die ganze Palette ausschöpft, von instrumentalem Einsatz der Stimme über Songs, bis zum Vortrag deutscher Texte, die ist in der improvisierten Musik immer noch ziemlich selten. Eine Meisterin darin ist Rena Meyer Wiel. Sie kommt nicht vom Jazz, sondern ursprünglich von der klassischen Musik, der Neuen Musik und Performance-Kunst. Intensiv beschäftigte sie sich mit der Musik fremder Kulturen. Heute sieht sie die Stimme vor allem als Instrument spiritueller Erfahrung. Musik sozusagen als Erschließung eines sakralen Raumes. Das ist auf ganz unprätentiöse und unmittelbar packende Weise auch das Programm ihres Duos mit dem Gitarristen und Soundscape-Gestalter Rolf Beydemüller. White Canvas, also „weiße Leinwand“, diesen Namen haben sich Rena Meyer Wiel und Rolf Beydemüller gegeben, in Anspielung auf die Offenheit, Unvoreingenommenheit und vielleicht auch Leere des Bewusstseins, die Voraussetzung für die Erfahrung von Fülle und Inspiration sind.“
Odilo Clausnitzer, WDR 3 „Jazzszene NRW“, 18. März 2010
„Man hört es gleich, das sind Herzensklänge. Seelenregungen, die zu Musik geworden sind. (…) White Canvas. Das sind Liebhaber der Klänge einer vieldimensionalen Welt und von Melodien einfacher Lebensweisen. Musik für Abenteurer, für Suchende, für Menschen, die gerne einmal hinter die Dinge lauschen, oder besser gesagt dem Klang der Welt zuhören, ganz unvoreingenommen, mit offenen Ohren. Nur so kann man ja das Unermessliche, dieses Mysterium, das uns umgibt und von dem wir ein Teil sind, auch wirklich erfahren.“
Michael Seyfert, Playground, KlassikRadio rbb , 12. März 2013
„Prädikat wertvoll (…) ein gutes Beispiel, wie man viele Genres miteinander kunstvoll verbinden kann. u.a. Elemente des Jazz, der Weltmusik, der Elektronik und der Neuen Musik. Dass diese miteinander bestens harmonieren und dazu noch so etwas wie eine emotionale Tiefe entwickeln, ist das große Verdienst der vier Musiker. (…) vielschichtig angelegtes Gesamtkunstwerk“
sound & image, Februar 2013: White Canvas – Chariad
[more]
„Und so etwas passiert quasi in der Nachbarschaft: Die Band White Canvas hat in Köln ein neues Album, „Chariad“, aufgenommen – und ein Stück große weite Musikwelt im Rheinland kreiiert. (…) Im Mittelpunkt steht die Stimme von Rena Meyer Wiel, die über eine enorme Bandbreite verfügt. Mal klingt sie wie Meredith Monk, oder eine späte Kate Bush, mal wie Laurie Anderson, scheint sich an klassischen Singer/Songwriterinnen zu orientieren, um dann mit dem stimmlichen Drama internationaler Folklore-Diven oder auch Broadway-Sängerinnen aufzuwarten. (…) Sanftes improvisiert Wirkendes, abgedrehte tatsächliche Improvisationen, kleine Folk-Miniaturen, die aus dem großen Kessel der bunten Weltmusik schöpfen. (…) Und das Resultat wirkt wie ein kleines Wunder (…) Ein Hörerlebnis – im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes.“
Axel Hill , Kölner Rundschau – Kölner Kultur, Januar 2013: Drama auf dem Teppich …
„Die Musik von White Canvas ist mächtig, aber keine schwere Kost. Sperrig und doch unmittelbar zugänglich. Beseelte improvisierte Musik, die sich durch erneutes Hören permanent verändert. Nicht umsonst heißt ihre CD Hundreds Of Ways.“
Franz X.A. Zipperer, Jazzthetik, März/April 2010: White Canvas – entformte Klänge …
„There are hundreds of ways to kneel down and kiss the ground – nach dem Gedicht des Sufi-Dichters Rumi ist das Album der Improvisationssängerin Rena Meyer Wiel und des Multi-Instrumentalisten Rolf Beydemüller benannt und bezeichnet die vielfältigen Wege, die die beiden gemeinsam in ihren Klangreisen gehen. Der Bandname „White canvas“ (die weiße Leinwand) steht für die Leere, das Loslassen vom bereits Existenten, um in einer unbegrenzten und offenen Begegnung Neues zu erschaffen. Aus Performances von Outdoor-Aufnahmen und Fragmenten von Konzertmitschnitten verwoben mit songähnlichen Stücken haben sie Geschichten geformt: „Erzählungen aus Tagen und Nächten an Ufern und Feuern, Gesänge von Berg und Wind, vielzungige Botschaften von Menschen und Wesen zwischen Himmel, Erde und Meer“. Farben und Klänge einer vieldimensionalen Welt und Erde, ohne Grenzen und Stile, sehr einzigartig.“
Mane Steltzer, MELODIVA, CD Tipp, März 2010
„Vögelzwitschern und eine hohe Stimme sind zu hören. Und ein gleich bleibender Sound. Dann schält sich noch eine Gitarre langsam heraus. „Hundreds Of Ways“ des Duos White Canvas beginnt sehr atmosphärisch, sehr langsam, sehr ruhig. Sängerin Rena Meyer Wiel und Gitarrist und Soundbastler Rolf Beydemüller, die sich selbst ganz treffend als Freistil-Musiker bezeichnen, haben hier sechzehn, zum Teil miniaturenhafte Soundgeschichten zusammengestellt, Outdoor-Aufnahmen und Fragmente aus Konzertmitschnitten zusammengebracht. Das Ganze klingt verträumt, verwunschen, mal mehr nach Soundgeflecht als nach einem echten Song, dann aber doch wieder konkret und mit Songstruktur. Das Album ist eine angenehme musikalische Reise durch Klänge und Stimme, auch mal leicht geloopt, immer aber sehr stimmungsvoll. In eine einzige Schublade passt diese Musik schwerlich. Muss sie aber auch nicht.“
Christoph Giese, Jazzthing, Februar/März 2010
„Hundreds Of Ways“ – ein Album für Grenzlauscher mit Faible für worldmusikalische und vocal-jazzige Abenteuertrips. Ein direkter Vergleich fällt mir nicht ein, aber wem Dead Can Dance ohne die schicksalsdräuende Pose zusagen würde, wer bei Marie Boine das Nordlicht pulsieren sieht, der Erotik Cassandra Wilsons Stimme erliegt und wer mit Bel Canto in Fantasiewelten abtaucht, der ist hier richtig!“
Norbert Neugebauer, Rocktimes, März 2010
Die Dame und die Herren machen eine Einordnung in die üblichen Schubladen nicht nur nicht leicht, sondern nahezu unmöglich. Gut so! (…) Diese Musik verlangt Ruhe sie zu hören. (…) Irgendwo im Niemandsland von Dead Can Dance (fliehende Klanglandschaften und flirrende Gesangspassagen), Laurie Anderson (Experimentierfreude, mediale Musikalität, Einsatz der Stimme) und Tori Amos (Frau, wenn auch andere Stimmlage, mit komplexen Songs und ebensolcher Klavierbegleitung) (…)
Stefan Leyendeckers über das Album „Chariad“, White Canvas Quartett
You can enjoy this like chocolate.
Amelie, 6 years – about the song „Deep in the heart of a rose“
PROJECTS
PROJECTS
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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:
- All That Matters (6:42)
- Fire, Read My Book (6:29)
- Da, wo der Mensch steht (6:59)
- Theologische Realenzyklopädie (0:58)
- Vom Paradies (2:08)
- Beyond Borders 2016 (7:04)
- Regen Regen (4:32)
- Falls sich die Dinge immer wiederholen (0:44)
- What Is Deeper – The Ocean Or Hope (7:09)
- Arctic Lament (7:37)
- Spiegel Epilog (3:40)
Total: 54:15
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
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
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.