SSAA a cappella + 4 speakers (cast from the choir)
4:45′
Based on a text by Olga Hohmann.
Commissioned and first performed on 22.2.2026 by the Girl’s Choir of the Singakademie zu Berlin, conducted by Friederike Stahmer.
The present piece is based on a text shared with me by the author and artist Olga Hohmann, which she had titled time travels, traveling in time, traveling time or 25 hours. The text engages with the concept of time, taking the occasion of the time change as a point of departure. It is wonderfully associative, takes detours, opens up images and trains of thought, circles back, brings a smile, and is both delightfully detailed and refreshingly light at the same time.
Olga works with both original and found material – quotes, slogans, overheard sentences from public spaces, proverbs, and mantras mix with memories, thoughts, commentary, elaborations, and additions. The internal and external blur into a kind of indistinguishable cacophony of voices, a web of references, a pop-cultural fabric in which thoughts are developed in multiple strands rather than linearly. Every quote – whether a commercial slogan, philosophical question, or childhood memory – is treated with equal hierarchical importance.
In time travels, traveling in time, traveling time or 25 hours, she quotes Albert Einstein, William Faulkner (as seen on a passerby’s T-shirt), her good friend L., and a German hotel chain.
Olga generously entrusted me with the use of selected excerpts from the text for this composition. The passages used can be found below.
In addition to the SSAA choir voices, the composition calls for four solo speakers (female). These may be cast from within the choir and may sing as long as their speaking parts allow. The four speakers should be evenly distributed across the stage, which makes it practical to assign each speaker from a different voice group as follows:
Speaker 1 = Soprano 1, Speaker 2 = Soprano 2, Speaker 3 = Alto 1, Speaker 4 = Alto 2
During performance, special attention must be paid to ensuring that the speakers remain clearly heard and understandable, even when the choir is singing.
Text by Olga Hohmann:
- The human biorhythm is actually designed for a 25 hour day. Not for a 24
hour day. There is exactly one day in the year that suits our bodies.And I wonder: Do birds actually think that the sun rises because they start
chanting?I wonder: Is wind made from birds flapping their wings?They say: When you have children the days are long and the years are short.They say: The only way out of it is going through it.If you stop pondering for a moment numerous bird songs can be heard.”The past is never dead”*
It hasn’t even passed yet
But the present,
the present is always now
It’s always already gone
Time, time is what keeps
Everything
From happening
All at once
*Quote from William Faulkner
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