Organism

Organism is the debut album from Copenhagen Clarinet Choir. With track titles like ’Flocking’, ‘Hive Mind’ and ‘Water Piece’, the work is situated at the intersection of composition and improvisation, and at the nexus of nature and music. Led by Irish woodwind player and composer Carolyn Goodwin, the clarinet sextet takes an egalitarian approach in the way it assembles its players. In the music of Organism, interdependent parts find an overall shape as organically as a living entity. Much like a choir, the individual voices of the six homogenous instruments are synergized, creating a warm, pulsating body of sound
Goodwin says, “There is a strong feeling of unity that comes from everyone playing the same instrument and producing one sound together. As an instrumentalist, it allows you to dissolve into the combined body of sound, much like one does in a vocal choir. It creates a tangible physical connection between each of the players, and it allows us to explore the clarinet as an extension of the body- through breath, fingering and posture.”
Organism strikes an often elusive balance between what is pre-determined and what is spontaneous, a balance that classically trained Goodwin admits is a constant occupation for her and is what led her to form Copenhagen Clarinet Choir. Exploring compositional ideas within the field of improvised music, she uses the ensemble to experiment with various sound concepts such as the representation of patterns found in subaquatic movement, swarming of insects and flight patterns of birds, and to investigate the ever-dissolving line between her role as composer and performer