Sydney – Tuesday 13 December, 2022. The Sydney Opera House today announced the rescheduled date for MotherTongue, MotherLand – Korean-born vocalist improviser and composer Sunny Kim’s immersive and poetic response to motherhood. Following its postponement in May, the work will have its premiere in the Utzon Room on Sunday 12 February, 2023 as part of the bi-annual season of UnWrapped.
Accompanied by internationally renowned collaborators Aviva Endean (clarinets), Mindy Meng Wang (guzheng) and Gelareh Pour (kamancheh, geychak and vocals), Kim and the musicians will explore their relationships with their mothers, many of whom were born on overseas shores.
Creating an intimate space where family stories of longing, belonging, joy and pain are shared and celebrated, audiences are invited to connect across cultures and languages through spoken to sung, structured to improvised, and traditional to experimental sonic narratives.
“Quite recently, I had the pleasure of visiting for the first time the Utzon Room where my new work, MotherTongue, MotherLand will premiere on the 12th of February. Seeing the Utzon Room brought much excitement and joy to my heart, as I imagined the space being filled with the rich and delicate sounds of the kamancheh, guzheng, bass clarinet, and voice that weave together the intimate family stories told through the new work.
The Utzon Room seems to be the perfect place for the performance of this work – with the beautiful tapestry on one side designed by Jørn Utzon, the architect of the Sydney Opera House, who worked closely with his daughter, Lin Utzon, to produce the artwork. Then on the other a wall of glass window looks out to the sea and evokes one’s imagination for the many untold Australian family stories of migration, longing, and belonging. My collaborators – Gelareh Pour, Mindy Meng Wang, and Aviva Endean – and I very much look forward to sharing with the audience the celebration of our stories and sounds coming together in this special place,” says Sunny Kim.
MotherTongue, MotherLand is commissioned by Sydney Opera House’s New Work Now initiative and is presented in association with UKARIA and Finding Our Voice, with support from the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative. Finding Our Voice is a nationwide program curated by Genevieve Lacey that connects vital musical voices and illuminates their incredible stories in one connected long-form festival.
The full UnWrappedApril – May 2023 season will be announced in February.