for 5 megaphones, violin, cello, bass clarinet, percussion, electronic music, audio-playback and video displayed on vintage TV's

commissioned by Plus-Minus Ensemble & Warsaw Autumn Festival

composed for Plus-Minus Ensemble 

created by Monika Dalach Sayers

 

Shout 1-3  is a multimedia performance and multi-layered composition consisting of electro-acoustic music, performative elements, and video. Work is inspired by Shout, a song performed by British band Tears for Fears, released in the UK on 23 November 1984. The song is considered to be one of the most successful protest songs and one of the biggest hits of the eighties. Shout is also a song that I strongly associate with my early childhood in a period of the growing popularity of MTV. In the early nineties, the song and its characteristic sound were present in my home almost every day. Over time, the song gained a more personal status, becoming the bridge between the past and the present. About twenty-five years after its release, the song gained new recognition throughout the MTV series Skins. Nowadays, the song is still valid proving the timelessness and universalism of the music and its message. 

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Shout has roots in Primal Scream Therapy, which worked by getting people to confront their fears by shouting and screaming. The piece aimed to encourage people to speak aloud about things that they find disturbing. The treatment became popular among artists including John Lennon and was one of the inspirations for Tears for Fears to compose the classic hit song. 

 

Shout 1-3 playfully explores the song motifs, glorifies aesthetics of 80s pop culture, and plays with the semiotic of the shout gesture. Sonically, the work reimagines Shout as an 80's pop hit and deconstructs the song and its fragments to its limits, reframing the protest song into a brand new light.

 

The world premiere of Shout 1-3 took place during the International Festival of Contemporary Music, Warsaw Autumn on 20th September 2019 at the Warsaw Philharmonic. ​

 

Watch trailer here: