Keir GoGwilt and Jonny Habibi: hope lies fallow

In 2021, the violinists Keir GoGwilt and Jonny Habibi initiated the project hope lies fallow, a series of non-idiomatic interpretations of early music. Their collaboration unfolded naturally, and nearly by chance: the pair had both recently relocated to Auckland/Tāmaki Makaurau and started meeting for weekly improvisational sessions, reading through Orlando di Lassus’s two-part motets in Habibi’s backyard simply because its sheet music was downloaded on GoGwilt’s tablet. Gradually this body of interpretations also came to include variations on Hildegard von Bingen and chants from the Cantigas de Santa Maria, as well as the participation of musician and composer Celeste Oram, who joins the pair on this occasion. Approaching the material as an excavation site, the musicians amble through measures in “suspended, rather than directed, time,” gently surfacing hidden ornamentations and dissonances. Fragments repeat, gestures elongate and suspend, and overtones bloom and wither. Selections from the project were compiled into the 2022 CD hope lies fallow, released by the UK-based label Another Timbre. This event marks the live debut of this work in the northern hemisphere.

Keir GoGwilt is a violinist, composer, and musicologist who was born in Edinburgh and grew up in New York City, where he currently lives. His work often takes research as a starting point, inflecting historical forms with collaborative experimentation. A current project, Zarabanda Variations, assembles a group of composers, performers, and poets to explore the musical legacy of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century “New Spain,” or present-day Mexico and the United States. He is an artist-in-residence with the JACK Quartet for the 2023-25 seasons. Jonny Habibi engages in extended explorations surrounding the relationships of sound and listening, contemporary and creative engagement of historical musics (medieval, baroque, and classical eras), and the interstices of improvisation, composition and performance. Jonny is part of the Wandelweiser composers’ collective, and currently collaborates with artists including Peter Ablinger, Jürg Frey, Antoine Beuger, Sam Dunscombe, Catherine Lamb, Klaus Lang,  and Taku Sugimoto. Celeste Oram is a composer and musician who grew up in New Zealand/Aotearoa and now lives in New York City. She often uses music-making as a catalyst to explore sonic and social histories and micro-cultures.