& Drago Ivanuša – 10 Minutes of Happiness
“We could be free if we were able to live in harmony”
Everything started in 2018, during the festival Druga Godba, when I was invited to step in, and substitute a guitarist of a very interesting South African art collective The Brother Moves On. A pianist replacing a guitarist in a ninja gospel/maskadi rock/eclectic band with only one rehearsal? I accepted, and what had happened then opened many new horizons for my musical expression.
Our collaboration continued. I went to Johannesburg for one month residency where I was rediscovering jazz, but not the European jazz I had studied for years, but a different jazz scene that attracted and irritated me at the same time: too many musicians improvising, performing, playing, screaming, drinking, dancing, arguing ... just too loud, it was just too loud. It was so as if that private and public were the same thing. The personal mixing with the political, the spirituality with the body and the intimacy struggling with distance. It appealed to me - this life of eclecticism and apparent pluralism which was only the expression of a single and strong community. I was so fascinated that I wanted to take this home with me.
Back in Ljubljana, I started to designing my next project with a larger collective of musicians in mind. Nobody believed that I would actually do it and neither did I. Therefore, I decided to write the score for 14 musicians and that was only the beginning of a project that started two months before the COVID-19 nightmare. It made my experiment, which was conceived merely as a live concert, turn into the production of a live video album and engaged about 30 people altogether.
THE CONCERT
It took me a while to compose the score and to realize that I didn’t want to make another studio album, but the opposite - to grab the moment of bursting emotions on stage in a single live performance. This was the compromise of what I learned in Johannesburg and what I knew was feasible in our cultural and artistic milieu. However, you can compose the music and organise an event in the best way possible, but you never know what else will follow.
Very soon after, I knew what will follow - in one way or another we will have to improvise! We were not able to test the venue before the day of the show, because it would have been too expensive. We had only one day to set up the scene, we had only few cameras available, but we had to deliver. It was a collaborative struggle, a difficult challenge that we had to deal with. It was a joint effort, every and each person involved, made it happen. Finally, we performed and recorded the concert in January 2020 at one of Ljubljana’s central music venues, Kino Šiška.
The concert starts with the solo piano performance of Slovenian pianist Drago Ivanuša accompanied by a visual projection of a clock counting down the seconds to the moment when the rest of the ensemble will slowly start to appear. The title of the intro, 10 Minutes Of Happiness, referring to the obsession of humans with happiness, gave me the inspiration to think about the time that is counting down to the merely survival.
With the concert 2020 Seconds Alive I wanted to tell a story of the transformative potential of music and thearts, as well as the relativity of time, or what Siyabonga Mthembu (the lead vocalist of The Brother Moves On) would call TIA time - This is Africa time. It is when the clock stops and the transformation begins.
The set list leads us through the evolution of musical genres, from the introverted contemporary classical music and minimalism to the extroverted jazz, afro-beat and finally improvisation, where the music (and the community), by connecting to its origins, opens up and truly comes alive.
LIVE ALBUM
All the songs from the concert except for piano solo of Drago Ivanuša - “10 Minutes Of Happiness” are also part of 2020 Seconds Alive audio album which is released by Slovene label NIKA.
1. Moving Sculpture
2. The Clock
4. Bowstrings
5. Exit The Wrong Way
6. Silenzio
8. Acceptance
9. While We Were Sleeping
10. Enter The Bow
11. Dance/Up/Rise
Each musician, artist, technician, manager or a friend had had its role in this project. For production of the live video and the audio album 2020 Seconds Alive, we were using live recorded material only. After months of collaborative work, we managed to finish both the video and the audio album. It was an exhausting, but in the end a rewarding process - only through solidarity and collectiveness of the brilliant collaborators, we managed to finish this project.
Especially in the current times of extreme digitalization during the pandemic lockdowns, it seems as if live performances and concerts are disappearing. The future for performing artists is uncertain more than ever, but it is important that we don’t surrender. I hope that the viewer or the listener of 2020 Seconds Alive project will be able to feel connected and close to the stage as if it would be a real live performance. We all know that coming back to the stage is crucial for our art to survive. With that said, maybe my project can also become a reminder of the importance of collaborative work and solidarity during the 2020 crisis.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t be more grateful and proud to finish this exciting project and I certainly look forward to my next “real” live performance.
Enjoy the music.
Tine Grgurevič - Bowrain
CREDITS:
Musicians performing:
Drago Ivanuša - piano / Oskar Longyka - violin / Vita Kobal - violin / Ema Kobal - cello / Žiga Golob - double bass, electric bass / Igor Matković - trumpet / Denis Beganović (Keykey) - trombone / Gašper Okorn - horn / Rok Grubelnik - tuba / Peter Baroš - synth / Karlo Petrović - drums, samples / Luka Uršič - KALU - vocals, effects / Zvezdana Novaković - vocals / Bowrain - piano, Fender Rhodes, synth, vocals
Visual concept and direction - JAŠA / Assistant director - Luka Slak / Photography and video - Tjaša Gnezda / 1st camera - Mato Marinček / 2nd camera - Maša Nonković / 3rd camera - Tjaša Gnezda / Live video projection - Klemen Lazarevič / Author of the video “10 Minutes of Happiness” - Luka Umek / Light design - Jure Rubelj / Graphic image - Ivian Kan Mujezinović / Audio recording - Jernej Černalogar, Nenad Mušnjak – Nency / Video edit - Tjaša Gnezda / Audio mixing - Jernej Černalogar / Sound mastering - Gregor Zemljič / Video overview - JAŠA / Video post–production - Rok Kajzer Nagode / Audio mastering – Gregor Zemljič
Special thanks:
Jurgen Wettig / Medius d.o.o / Matija Starič / Jure Vlahovič / BalkaNet e.V. / Tjaša Nabergoj / Katja Kobolt / Janez Gabrič / Glasbeno mesto Detroit / Silič d.o.o. / Digital Studio - Slak d.o.o. / Glasilka (Vlado Mihajlović, Andraž Boštjančič) / Tanja Plankar – Grgurevič / Jure Grgurevič / Blaž Celarec / Jan Košir / Matjaž Manček / Pavel Čebašek