Creation : 9 September 2000, Fondation Royaumont, Festival Voix Nouvelles
Commissioner : State Command for the Royaumont Foundation
Dedicated to : Les Percussions de Strasbourg
Musicians : 6 percussionists
Duration : 15’
Publishing : Inedit
The Home Organs room is modelled on the recovery of memory in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease; the refrains of childhood unfold freely, while more or less functional memories are removed. The title Home Organs contains both Home and Organs. If the word ‘organ’ in English means both ‘organ’ and ‘organs’ (like the lung), the word ‘home’ has a life of its own, whose meaning ranges from the banal reality of a suburban dwelling to the speculative and essentialist idea of a ‘floor’, a place to which one ‘belongs’. Here the word “home” is understood in a more mobile way than in the first sense, and in a more flexible way than in the second. The name, Home Organs, is given to any instrument, other than the piano, that can be found in a suburban house in Australia: harmonium, casio, yamaha, etc. The name is given to any instrument, other than the piano, that can be found in a suburban home in Australia: harmonium, casio, yamaha, etc. Enjoying a certain popularity among my grandmother’s generation, the home organ occupies a little-known place in the genealogy of instruments built for the purpose of making music in the home. My grandmother is as much affected by Alzheimer’s disease as she is by the immediate beauty of the domestic organ.
Thomas Meadowcroft