Five centuries ago, in the barren lands of central Spain, a monastic order was born: thirteen nuns, fighting against the foundations of the Church and the Inquisition, barricaded themselves in a little country house and set out for a new spiritual journey. They sung, they listened, they wrote, they contemplated. ‘Tu voz, Señor, es como de muchas aguas’—your voice, Lord, is the voice of many waters: so goes one of the descriptions of God’s voice in their early writings.
The research of composer, stage artist and choral leader Tomer Damsky attempts to awaken the unheard sounds of these nuns and develop a new form of collective creation. How can we translate a spiritual framework into music? What does it mean to listen to a text, its rhythm, its sonic world? How does the feedback loop between singing and listening affect us as performers?
This research is the first to uncover the sonorous substance in the mystical literature of Carmelite nuns from 16th-century Castile and revive its unexplored musical potential. By combining historical sound studies, voice theory, and an experimental exegesis of spiritual literature, an original methodology will emerge: ‘acoustemopoetics, the literary expression of knowing-through-sound’. A creative practice will then be formulated: ‘acoustemopoetic composition’, inspired by literary motifs of how the nuns describe voices and hearing. The research explores the surprising meeting points between liturgical, folk, and metal aesthetics, listening practices, and oral transmission.
