an omniscience: an atmos-etheric, transnational, interplanetary cosmist bird opera spanning seven continents and the many verses is an operatic performance piece combining epic poetry and an original score for woodwinds. It gathers the stories of the Arctic Tern, a bird that makes the longest migration of any creature, traveling annually from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back, equalling almost three trips to the moon and back over its thirty year lifespan. The viewer is invited to bring their binoculars and bird-watch, while the 7 performers–flute, oboe, bass flute, bass clarinet, 2 voices and a conductor; adorned with wings and beaks–use air as a carrier for their messages. 

This avian opera celebrates air, lightness, drifting, horizons, transnationalism and cosmism, while grieving the melting poles, the loss of home, the hunger, the defeat of not arriving and the loneliness of individualism. It insists on collectivity, social movements and non-linear ways of being. It attempts to re-route us, to go back and forth in time and offer an existential glimpse at our biped lives, and suggests drift as a mode of being (terns can hover in mid-air for long periods of time) and air as a supportive ether for the circulation of a common path (of ideas) that runs across the ends of the earth, connecting the tundra to the tropics. The references span cultural legends of fantastical birds, flying the seven seas, the valleys, the realms. The bird becomes a prophet, a poet, an instructor, a politician, a philosopher, a guide. At the end, the music is the bird, a winged exception to our gravity-dependent bodies.

sound excerpts

Excerpts from ‘an omniscience’, Recorded by Friedemann Ploner/Intonation-Tonstudio for Biennale Gherdeina in May 2022. Flute: Valeria Mussner, Oboe: Lukas Runggaldier, Bass Flute: Sarah Hintner, Bass Clarinet: Anna Niedermühlbichler, First Voice: Himali Singh Soin, Second Voice: Cairo Clarke & Conductor: David Soin Tappeser.

performance stills