Karkowski / Encumberance /Gęba

1. Zbigniew Karkowski - Encumbrance

Gęba vocal ensemble
Baskak (Antoni Beksiak) – choirmaster, Remigiusz Mazur-Hanaj, Grzegorz Milczarczyk, Maria Puzyna, Tetiana Sopiłka, Karolina Szulejewska, Agata Wróbel, Łukasz Wójcicki
Wolfram – realization of the electronics part and leading

2. Zbigniew Karkowski Encumbrance

Gęba vocal ensemble
Baskak (Antoni Beksiak) – choirmaster, Maniucha Bikont, Justyna Czerwińska, Aleksandra Klimczak, Maria Puzyna, Tetiana Sopiłka, Dominik Strycharski, Sławomir Wojciechowski, Michał Ziółkowski
Constantin Popp – realization of the electronics part and leading

It can be assumed that Karkowski’s intention was to formulate dialogues and combine rudimentary electronic sounds with their human-produced mimicries (with the use of amplification). Encumbrance, as an “intentional object” (Roman Ingarden), comprises a sketch score, written instructions and one sound sample, by way of example. The composer also provided us with Pure Data visual programming language patches, but I do not know if they have ever been directly used for a performance. Karkowski himself requested old-fashioned Brüel & Kjær sine generators, such as the ones used at the Experimental Studio, and we managed to acquire them from Polish Radio thanks to the help of the engineer Wojciech Makowski. According to the composer, these were the only pieces of equipment capable of generating pure sine waves. All the vocal techniques were developed, or at least verified, by the vocalists while working with the composer in December 2009.