Welcome back to the Northern Film Orchestra Blog!
In todays article we are pleased to share with you a brand new work from a composer who we are sure will be a rising star in modern classical music in the years to come, Indian composer Mobeus Amphisbaena.
In what is his debut recording, his piece entitled stigmata, is a 10-minute long work for string quartet (Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass) and involves some interesting tonal colours, evocative harmonies as well as the use of extended string techniques. We recorded stigmata as part of a shared orchestra recording earlier this year.
After many weeks spent mixing and meticulously editing the video, we are delighted to share the final performance with you all today.
Read on below to discover more!
Mobeus
Currently residing in the Indian province of Assam, Mobeus has a background in playing drums and violin, and has branched out into the world of composition. His musical influences include Handel and Sibelius.
"My childhood was spent like a regular kid going to school and at the age of 12 my parents got me a 5 octave Casio keyboard and I started initially by practicing melodies of Assamese songs. By the time my tutor began introducing me to the music notation system, I had already lost interest in the keyboard and turned to the drum kit, regularly performing with the school choir in the morning assembly.
"Composing is such an addiction, the vast universe visible upon the stave. It is such an addiction that I cannot wait to move to a developed country and get a soundproofed environment to continue my work."
A section on Mobeus' original hand-written manuscript, including an index section for bespoke performance markings.
Mobeus composed this piece by hand on manuscript paper. To prepare this piece for recording we has to take a pdf scan of the entire score and transcribe this note-by-note into Sibelius. The score featured bespoke performance markings the mobeus had developed himself to describe specific playing techniques. Our music team had the fun challenge of translating these into notation software in a way that could be easily understood by our musicians.
Images taken from the recording session.
In his own words...
"The inspiration for quartet Stigmata was quite peculiar... In pockets of silence from midnight till dawn, I put the roll of paper on the floor and sat there looking at the white paper and let my ideas flow freely. These ideas would eventually become the details and nuances of this composition. The piece was initially titled "Pareja Esteril" which means "Sterile couple" in Spanish. The composition is basically a short story of two cadences which were never meant to occur together."
You can check out the final performance of Stigmata in the video below!
Final performance video featuring musicians from our string section.
We hope you enjoyed checking out this article and learning more about Mobeus and his work as a composer. If you wish to contact Mobeus you can reach him via the following email address: reet16ad@gmail.com
If you have a similar work that you would like to record then feel free to reach out to us directly and see what we can do for you. We regularly run shared orchestra recording sessions so send us a message with your proposal and we can gladly accommodate you.
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