Supported by the Cultural Export Fund

Renzo Spiteri 

Quintessence solo performance is best described as an immersive experience that wraps the audience in an alluring world of sound, created through the use of sampling and live electronic manipulation, a large suspended metal sheet, a fishing line, vocal phrases, and a sculptural array of found objects and acoustic instruments.

This performance is at the forefront of artistic experiments in digital age storytelling technique that brings audiences together to discover and experience the meeting point between live performer, sound art, story, music and digital technology. It is a piece that challenges the audience to reconsider what sound can mean and how the boundaries of self and world, performer and spectator, organic and inorganic, sound and instrument are rendered fluid and all encompassing.

Quintessence traces its roots to an artistic collaboration with the Royal Conservatoire of Music of The Hague (The Netherlands) in September 2012, brought about by invitation of the city of The Hague, former Dutch candidate competing for the title of Cultural Capital of Europe in 2018. Premiered at The Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (UK) in partnership with Future Everything Festival 2015, Quintessence has since been presented in Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

At the end of April 2016, Quintessence will be performed at St Luke's in London.

Photo credit: European Central Bank