"TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL; REFRAMED"
MUSIC SCORE FOR FILM DIRECTOR GUY MADDIN
A live cinematic and musical event commissioned for this year’s PERFORMA 11, Tales from the Gimli Hospital: Reframed pairs Guy Maddin’s first feature film with a live performance of a new score created by Matthew Patton, a superstar group of Icelandic musicians, the Seattle-based musical collective Aono Jikken Ensemble, and live electronics engineer Paul Corley. Former múm frontwoman Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir (aka Kría Brekkan) expertly performed a narration newly written by Maddin, accompanied by string and vocals by Gyða Valtýsdóttir (cello), Borgar Magnason (double bass), and Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir (violin). Additional music and phenomenal Foley effects were created by Seattle’s Aono Jikken Ensemble (Willliam Satake Blauvelt, Dean Moore, and Naho Shioya).
- Performa magazine on the music score for "Tales from the Gimli Hospital Reframed"
Lincoln Center, New York, Nov. 2011
For Performa 11, Maddin is going back to his first feature film, 1988’s Tales from the Gimli Hospital, adding a new score by Matthew Patton that will be performed live by an Icelandic supergroup, electronics engineer Paul Corley, and Seattle-based collective Aono Jikken Ensemble, along with new narration sung and spoken by Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir.
Matthew Patton, another native of Winnipeg, composed a shimmering score, which was played by a phenomenal group of Icelandic musicians. The narration, some of it new, was performed in an otherworldly mix of singing and speaking by Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir (formerly lead singer of the band múm); Gyda Valtýsdóttir (formerly of Mum), Borgar Magnason (Bedroom Community), and Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir (Amiina) playing on a green cello, double bass and violin. A couple of the musicians wore black nurse’s caps with white crosses, as if in a negative image of the film’s nurses, whose uniforms include white caps with black crosses. The Seattle-based Aono Jikken Ensemble provided Foley sound effects and music, and the live-electronics engineer Paul Corley (Bedroom Community) contributed additional effects.
- Frieze Magazine on the music score for "Tales from the Gimli Hospital Reframed"
Lincoln Center, New York, Nov. 2011
"SPANKY TO THE PIER AND BACK"
MUSIC SCORE FOR FILM DIRECTOR GUY MADDIN
At the major Guy Maddin Film Retrospective at the Pompidou Center in Paris, France from October 15 - November 7, 2009. Guy Maddin opened the largest complete retrospective of his films with "Spanky to the Pier and Back", a remembrance for his recently deceased and beloved dog, Spanky, star of "My Winnipeg".
"Under Maddin's film is Matthew Patton's grand, sombre music, an organlike synthesizer score of slow, impressive melancholy that transforms the film into something like a Requiem: it is emotionally big music for a film about a little dog. The music pulls the dance of images into a realm of deeper, darker affect - Spanky To the Pier and Back becomes grave and moving. A gem."
- William Beard "Into the Past; The Cinema of Guy Maddin"
University of Toronto Press, 2010
"HAUNTINGS"
MUSIC SCORE FOR FILM DIRECTOR GUY MADDIN
Guy Maddin, whose film My Winnipeg inspired the show's name, said he was proud of his fellow Winnipeg artists and the show clearly demonstrates what they can do when their art travels.
"For me, I would say my biggest thrill was getting out there (Paris) as part of my lost-film installation, The Brian Sinclair Story, a local news item a few years old, but already lost. I felt compelled to include his story, a tragic narrative, which has now played in Winnipeg, Toronto and Paris. The film loops endlessly, sadly, with gorgeous music by composer Matthew Patton, very Winnipeg," he said.
- Winnipeg Free Press Sept. 2011
"SPEAKING IN TONGUES"
MUSIC SCORE FOR CHOREOGRAPHER PAUL TAYLOR
"a masterpiece for our time".
- The New York Times
"Speaking in Tongues" focuses on the darker side of the human experience, it is twice as long as most stage works, and the sequence of events is nonchronological. "Speaking in Tongues" is about redemption, spiritual values, and the acknowledgement of death... and it is a modern classic."
"overpowering and unforgettable... a tour de force".
- The New York Times
"a main element in the success of 'Speaking in Tongues' is the score by Matthew Patton, a young Canadian. In fact, the work grew out of the score, which was submitted to Mr. Taylor through the mail. His compilation includes, among other things, a duet for guitar and choir, religious hymns, an evangelist preaching on the radio and the sound of waves washing up on a shore. Combined with Mr. Taylor's choreography, never more lean and assured, it all results in a mesmerizing morality play and stunning television."
"a masterwork".
- The New York Times
"Speaking in Tongues" had its world premiere and everyone who is anyone in New York was out to see it. The New York Times called the work, "a masterpiece for our time". Matthew Patton wrote the music for "Speaking in Tongues" and as he shrugged on to the stage to take his curtain call, everyone was dying to see the new genius."
- The Globe and Mail
"amazing - a work of such imaginative breadth... magnificent".
- Newsweek
"while the choreography is stunning, its the music that captivates. Patton's score is rich and textured, a collage of atmospheric sound, soft chimes, ear-splitting noise, AM radio and a haunting narration by an anonymous U.S. evangelist. The score commands attention without taking away from the choreography. Every element of the dance is flawlessly sewn together, with Patton's music providing the central focus."
- The Globe and Mail
"Matthew Patton's score incorporates ghostly electronic sound, acoustic music, and the muffled cries of evangelists. It is also confusing, forbidding, sometimes muddled and overemphatic - and unforgettable."
- The New York Times
"praised to the heavens by leading critics as a modern masterpiece".
- The Christian Science Monitor
"Matthew Patton's score consists of a mangled reality mixing a naturalistic sound of music, noise, and voice... unusually eloquent and always brilliant."
- The New York Post
"a mammoth, haunting work... mesmerizing"
- The Washington Post
"Speaking in Tongues" is a vision of nuclear holocaust times ten. The music score by Matthew Patton has terrific percussive effects and excerpts of demogogic-sounding speeches and testaments. The piece is filled with moments of extreme passion and tension... a most ambitious work."
- Newsday
"There is so much to admire in "Speaking in Tongues"... the piece resonates with meaning. Patton's music score offers everything from rippling electronic arpeggios and the sound of distant celestial choirs to pounding rhythms and snippets of radio evangelism... The intensity of observation in this work, the humanity, however harsh and twisted, compel attention... brilliant, a tour de force."
- The Times of London
"Modern Choreography Highlights: I loved the extreme nature and madness of the first work of Taylor’s that I saw,“Speaking in Tongues,” as performed at the Paris Opera House."
- Roslyn Sulcas New York Times April 2012
