45th International Viola Congress 2018

Venue: Societeit MATRIX, Mauritsstraat 16

 "The viola in non-classical music", jazz/crossover (45 minute set)
Yanna Pelser and Roland Satterwhite

Where the violin is common in traditional folk music (for example in Ireland, Brazil, Scandinavia, Rumania and Arabic countries), the viola is not heard that often. The crossover violists if today are slowly changing this. Bit by bit we see a small trend coming up: the viola as soloistic, melodic instrument in folk music or crossover ensembles. Also for singer-songwriters, the viola is becoming a favourite instrument as a replacement of the guitar. The two violists and singer-songwriters Yanna Pelser (NL) and Roland Satterwhite (USA) both use the combination of viola and voice. They discovered that the viola combines very well
with their voice range; because of it's warm timbre, the viola allows the voice to blend with it
perfectly.

Besides that, Roland found that the viola sounds excellent when it is plucked, and so he often uses it as an accompanying instrument to his voice. To create an even more resonant sound, he often uses a lower tuning of the strings. The tasteful use of effect pedals and a loopstation enables him to create extra textures to his viola-sound. The use of voice and 'extended' viola results in different colours in the field of the one-man-performance. In the lecture we will show examples (video's and audio) of a couple of violists who play in
non-classical ensembles using their viola in a non-classical way.

The recital-part will be a presentation of our own songs. New plucking techniques (developed by Roland) will be shown, as well as singing in unison and in intervals with our own violaplaying (Yanna's main focus). All of this is interwoven in beautifully composed songs; some instrumental, some with lyrics. In our songs we use the touch of different folk genres: Blues, West-African inspired melodies, flamenco and Brazilian music. Both active as improvising musicians, Yanna and Roland will definitely improvise as well!