Née à Singapour et basée à Paris, Diana Soh est une compositrice reconnue pour son travail à la croisée de la musique contemporaine, du théâtre et de la technologie. Elle explore une écriture interactive et expressive en collaboration étroite avec les interprètes, développant des couleurs sonores singulières. Sa musique, qualifiée de “très énergétique et galvanisante” (ResMusica), aborde souvent des problématiques sociales et culturelles. Selon Concert Classic, elle “compose l’impossible”.
Parmi ses projets récents : Carmen Cour d’assises, théâtre musical créé au TAP de Poitiers en mai 2023, avec mise en scène d’Alexandra Lacroix, repris à l’Opéra de Bordeaux et au Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg en 2024. Elle poursuit dans cette veine avec L’avenir vous le dira, un opéra pour chœur d’enfants commandé par l’Opéra de Lyon (festival 2025), en collaboration avec Alice Laloy (mise en scène) et Emmanuelle Destremeau (livret).
Diana approfondit son travail vocal après Tu es Magique (Maîtrise de Radio France, Festival Présences 2022) et Ackee (Sequenza 93, Jeux Olympiques de Paris 2024). En 2024, elle crée La Ville-Zizi (Laura Bowler), Unbroken (Rosie Middleton) et I linger lately beyond my time (Claron MacFadden & Ensemble Intercontemporain, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence). Elle se produira également comme chanteuse avec le SYC Ensemble Singers pour leur 60e anniversaire.
Son année 2024 est marquée par plusieurs créations instrumentales : on, off and on again (orgue solo, Philharmonie de Paris), And those who were seen dancing (Quatuor Arditti), et I forget to remember when I am with you, projet réunissant six structures musicales dans les Alpes françaises. Parmi les projets à venir : Songs from whence I came pour mezzo-soprano, orchestre et électroniques (Rinat Shaham et l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Festival Manifeste IRCAM), ainsi qu’Sous notre peau, programme d’une heure pour Quatour Présages (ensemble vocaux féminin)dans le cadre de La Belle Saison.
Parmi ses œuvres marquantes : A is for Aiyah (Singapore Symphony Orchestra, 2018), sssh (Quatuor Mettis, Festival d’Aix 2018), Zylan ne chantera plus (Opéra de Lyon hors les murs, texte de Yann Verburgh, mise en scène de Richard Brunel), My other self (Festival Nouveaux Horizons), et Of smaller things (Schallfeld Ensemble).
Ses œuvres ont reçu le soutien de la Fondation Barlow, Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, IRCAM, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Ministère français de la Culture, Fondation Royaumont et Festival Klang de Copenhague. Elles sont diffusées internationalement (WDR, ORF, BBC Radio 3, France Musique) et jouées par des ensembles tels que Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Arditti Quartet, Ensemble Court-Circuit, Ensemble Lucilin, Ensemble 2E2M, Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen, BBC Singers, et des artistes comme Elise Chauvin, Emmanuelle Ophèle, Jean Rondeau, James McVinnie, Gérard Caussé ainsi que les chefs Jean Deroyer, Pierre-André Valade, Sandro Gorli, Sofi Jeannin, Lucie Leguay.
Lauréate du Young Artist Award (Singapour), du Prix Impuls (2017) et du Prix SACEM Francis et Mica Salabert (2021), Diana débute sa carrière en France en 2012 en residence à La Muse en Circuit. Elle a été en résidence avec Divertimento Ensemble (2019) et Artiste-Associée à l’Opéra de Bordeaux (2023–24) et sera compositrice en résidence à l’Université de Toronto à l’automne 2025. Son disque monographique Still, Yet, And Again est paru chez Stradivarius.
- Janvier 2025
I have always been fascinated by the physicality of the performers and have attached great importance to their presence on stage. Hence, in this piece, I hope to explore the duality of musical gestures between what is seen and what is heard. The use of motion sensors allows me to explore the idea that theatre itself produces sounds, and sounds produces theatre. This use of such technology is also a way of returning the autonomy of the electronic processing back to the performer. In Arboretum of myths and trees, the singer interprets the electronics: what she does , both physically and musically will affect the electronics.
The soprano is thus a central figure that is both supported and contradicted by the ensemble. I wrote and composed a series of gestures that the singer must perform in addition to singing. Hence, with her hand movements, she controls and interprets the execution of electronic treatments on the harp and piano, while the sounds of the flutes can we viewed as an extension of the vocal writing.
The composition of the music and gestures are, naturally, subjected to the psychological states of these mythic characters Daphne and Apollo. This myth is well known: to avenge the taunts of Apollo, Eros makes him fall in love with the nymph Daphne, while generating a total disgust in the latter; To escape the rape of Apollo, Daphne transformed into a laurel tree.
The version given by Jamie R. Currie - English writer, poet, philosopher and musicologist - is a modern semi-abstract narrative. When writing the text, he had in mind the statue by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) in 1625, which can be seen today at the Villa Borghese in Rome: the gesture of Apollo almost touching Daphne, the silent cry that appears on the her face, the frightened young girl already half transformed.
Arboretum is a botanical term for a collection of trees meant for scientific study. Here it is a metaphor for the form of this work which presents 3 versions of the myth. The commonality between myths and trees lies in structure - that of a tireless arborescent development. The figures of myth are protean and inconsistent: each era projects onto the same myths its own nuances and metaphors to better illustrate the societal issues of the day. The myth here serves both as sounding metaphor and reality: the choice of which is at the same time irrelevant ( I could choose another one ) and absolutely crucial because it gives the work its coherence and its shape.
Each of the 3 versions offers a different perspective of the scene - in a different mode of expression and syntax.
In the first part , Apollo dream - I imagine a drunk, leaning against the bar, remembering his deed, trying to dissolve his problems in alcohol. Then comes the flight of Daphne: the text is in the present, panic speech with rushed words and little regard for coherent meaning. In the third and last part is the singing of the tree: we hear the creaking of the tree bark, the rustling of leaves and one voice remains, that of the poor Daphne.
The myth of Apollo and Daphne is not for me eternal love story but rather a story of possession and eternal regret.
This English version is an edited transcript of an interview by Jeremy Szpirglas, Manifeste 2013.
“I linger lately beyond my time” is a loose response to Eight Songs for a Mad King by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies with a libretto by Randolph Stow based on the words of George III.
Our version, with text by James R. Currie and music by Diana Soh provides an entry into the world of his wife and counterpart Queen Charlotte.
Her life as regent marked the shift into the modern world—a world in which the call of liberation was everywhere, and yet everywhere on stage (in the name of progress and liberation in art) women were shown as mad.
How do you write a piece about someone trying to hold it all together?
And how do you write music about sanity and about questioning the assumption that it's always about extreme states? That is our endeavour.
Co-commission by Festival d’Aix en Provence and Ensemble Intercontemporain, this concert monologue will be performed by Claron McFadden and Ensemble Intercontemporain on 5 July 2024 at the Hôtel Maynier d’Oppède during the 2024 Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.