In “Mother Viola (study#1)” Julia Eckhardt juxtaposes recorded language fragments with her composition for viola. Different female voices, different languages. It is not what they say, but how they say it, that is important. Non-intelligible, affective qualities: sound, tone, and melody create a collage in which improvised miniatures and field recordings are multiplied, decontextualised and interwoven in a time-shifted manner.

Mother Viola (study#1) is the first part of a hybrid project, an installative opera that deals in a polyphonic, non-linear way with the complex relation between mothers and daughters and the transition of generations. This relationship is so comprehensive and so old that opera offers a suitable narrative form, while an installation gives the artist the opportunity to distance herself physically from the action. But here and now, the composer with her viola is an interactive part of this confrontation.

Julia Eckhardt is a musician and organiser in the field of Sonic Arts. She is a founding member and artistic co-director of the Q-O2 Workspace in Brussels, for which she has conceived various thematic research projects. As an interpreter of composed and improvised music, she has collaborated with numerous artists and intensively with Eliane Radigue. She has performed internationally and released a number of recordings. She has lectured on topics such as sound, gender and public space and is (co-)author of The Second Sound, Conversation on Gender and Music, Grounds for Possible Music, The Middle Matter – sound as interstice and Éliane Radigue – Zwischenräume/Espaces intermédiaires.