Parlour Sounds

Here are a few words about it from the Scottish Herald: 

PARLOUR Sounds, a new piece by Red Note’s Embedded composer Patricia Alessandrini, tells the tale of a 1960s housewife who explores and creates sound by utilising her standard, everyday surroundings. Presented as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival, the staging, drama and sheer physicality of the work is crucial—it is most definitely a piece which could only work on a performative level. It’s almost operatic in its dramaturgy: soprano Peyee Chen takes the central role, her pure tones lending a vulnerable fragility to the performance. Her close tonal dialogue with flautist Ruth Morley is particularly unnerving, as voice and flute begin to fuse with one another. While much of the piece is entertaining and fun (a hoover playing a ‘moothie’ for instance), overall the work is deeply profound. The claustrophobia and sense of unharnessed potential energy is rife, leading the audience to question Chen’s character, and her need to create art from the mundane.