focus: default x iii - 17.04.2025 with Maya Verlaak, Áine O'Dwyer, Vanessa Rossetto
For our second collaboration with iii, we invite you to join us for an evening of performances at iii workspace – closing off our third season how we’ve started
default x iii, Thursday, 17th of April, iii workspace, Willem Dreespark 312, The Hague, doors at 19:30, performances start at 20:00 | Tickets*
Maya Verlaak, Áine O'Dwyer, Vanessa Rossetto
For this edition, we are very happy to welcome Vanessa Rossetto during her first European tour, an American composer and chipper-shredder who processes whatever sounds cross her path into sprawling, long-form narratives, accentuating the drama of normality through recordings from spaces of everyday life; the multidisciplinary artist Áine O'Dwyer, whose work embraces the broader aesthetics of sound and its relationship to environment, presenting ‘Sing in the Dark’ – an homage to the vocalisations and acoustic camouflage techniques of the European nightjar; and Maya Verlaak, the composer and iii member, for a staging of ‘A Deviation for Approximation’, in which she invites the audience to investigate deviations from a walking route as a compositional tool. Read more about the program and the artists performing below.
+ accompanying walk with Maya Verlaak, meeting at 18:45 at the coordinates 52.046895, 4.296389 | Reservation
In addition to the three performances that treat the notion of 'space’ in idiosyncratic and diverging ways, the program involves an accompanying ‘deviated’ walk, exploring the aforementioned compositional system developed by Maya Verlaak for for which you are invited to join at at 18:45 at the coordinates 52.046895, 4.296389 (close to Speeltuin Drakentoren). This presentation of Maya Verlaak’s composition/walk celebrates the launch of her publication ‘Blueprint #3: Deviation’, as part of iii’s Blueprint series.
*For this event in collaboration with iii, ticket prices are based on a sliding scale between 6 and 20 euros. Please select the amount that balances best your love for the program and your current budget.
We recommend buying tickets online prior to the event due to the limited capacity of the venue. If the tickets are sold out, there will be no ticket-sale at the door.
Vanessa Rossetto
Vanessa Rossetto is an American composer and chipper-shredder, processing whatever sounds cross her path into sprawling, long-form narratives. Trained as a painter, Rossetto began working with sound in 2007 as a way to incorporate the element of time into her work. Since then, she has released 20+ albums of rollicking, homebrew musique concrète both on her own and with a host of collaborators.
Through an intricate diary-like stitching of field recordings, electronics, chamber instrumentation, a wide array of objects, captured conversations, diegetic music and other found sounds, Rossetto creates music that makes the lost and humble sounds of everyday life feel very close and at the same time fit seamlessly in their respective carefully constructed realities. Implying or obscuring narratives and accentuating the drama of normality.
Her output is mainly focused on recording works, making this performance a rare occasion as part of her first ever European tour. These performances come just after her 2025 two-cd release on Erstwhile Records ‘Pictures Of The Warm South’ that followed up her previous two-cd release ‘The Actress’ (Erstwhile, 2022).
Rossetto has furthermore released music via Graham Lambkin’s now defunct Kye label, Another Timbre, Tone Glow Records, No Rent, Regional Bears, and other labels including her own Music Appreciation. She has collaborated with artists such as Lionel Marchetti, Kevin Parks, Moniek Darge, Lee Patterson, and extensively with Matthew Revert.
Áine O'Dwyer - ‘Sing in the Dark’
‘Sing in the Dark’ by Áine O'Dwyer is a performance that recreates the vocalisations of the European nightjar – a crepuscular bird whose strident churring call can be heard several hundred meters away. ‘Sing in the Dark’ pays homage to the nightjar’s nocturnal vocalisations and mastery of acoustic camouflage. The performer remains invisible to its audience while vocally mimicking birds and insects from the surrounding habitat, using ventriloquism to confuse predators. The nightjar’s association with darkness has cast a sinister tone through the ages, and brought with it a barrage of prejudice and superstition. In parts of Germany the nightjar is known as the death bird or ‘todtenvogel’; in other parts of Europe they are called ‘night swallow’, ‘fern owl’, ‘goat-sucker’, ‘screech hawk’, or ‘the spinning wheel bird’. ‘Sing in the Dark’ was first performed in 2023 at Cafe OTO, London, where the audience were placed in a dusky environment of natural sounds (crickets, toads, rustling leaves), complimented by a series of unsourced vocalisations.
Áine O'Dwyer is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is informed by both the conceptual concerns of sound art and traditional composition techniques, embracing the broader aesthetics of sound and its relationship to environment, time, audience, and structure. She has created works for large-scale and intimate settings that allow for both planned and chance compositions to co-exist in live situ. O’Dwyer’s work has been informed by her study of the individual idiosycracies found in each pipe-organ and notably her realisation that each individual organ is meticulously tuned to the measurements of the building.
Her recent works include 'Poems for Daedalus' (2018), a series of site-specific performances developed in Athens; the book 'Poems for play' (2018), a collection of scores for a Jesuit monastery; 'Accompaniment for Captives' (Open Ear Festival, 2019), a performance for two fishing boats; 'Performance for Live Stream' (Cafe OTO, 2021), an audio-visual work; 'Song of Place' (2022), a street opera staged in Bristol suburbia and the Cassette Box ‘Turning in Space’ (Blank Forms, 2023), which compiled a series of sonic choreographies using post-collagist techniques, conducted at the artist’s living and studio space in suburban East London.
Maya Verlaak - ‘A Deviation for Approximation’
Maya Verlaak’s composition ‘A Deviation for Approximation’ uses cardinal directions from a simple route as a musical structure. The analysis of this route unfolds every aspect and allows us to see the route as a complex piece of music. The performers receive a route Maya cycled in the city of Ghent and are asked to walk or cycle the exact same cardinal directions in the city where the performance takes place. The compositional process investigates the idea of approximation and how one route can become a musical variation of another route. Every time the route is performed, the initial map from Ghent develops into variations.
The event involves an accompanying ‘deviated’ walk, exploring the aforementioned compositional system developed by Maya Verlaak. This presentation celebrates the launch of Maya Verlaak’s publication ‘‘Blueprint #3: Deviation’ as part of iii’s Blueprint series, giving a detailed insight into the presented work and inviting others to recreate her artwork.
Maya Verlaak is a composer, for whom composing means research and communication. For each new situation, she develops new techniques and never takes anything for granted. Experimental methods for better communication are central to her work. Sharing the creative process is important to her, which is why she develops new notation systems for each assignment.
Maya has been commissioned worldwide by an array of international ensembles and soloists among Ensemble Klang (NL), Asko|Schönberg ensemble (NL), Hermes Ensemble (BE), A.pe.ri.od.ic (US), Post-Music ensemble (DE), IEMA – Ensemble Modern (D), Apartment House (UK), and by Karin de Fleyt (B), Mark Knoop (UK), Sarah Saviet (D), Kate Ledger (UK) and many others. Her music has been released by labels such as Ensemble Klang Records (‘Vanishing Point’, 2024), Birmingham Record Company (‘Trace’, 2024) (‘Tape Piece’, 2020), and Another Timbre (‘All English Music’ is Greensleeves, 2020). She is furthermore a member of iii.
default x iii is financially supported by The Municipality of The Hague and Creative Industries Fund NL.
About Us
default den haag is a non-profit curatorial initiative focused on the presentation of creative contemporary sound and performance in the Hague, curating and organizing their nomadic sound series with an international focus on experimental music and sound art performances since 2022, next to occasionally hosting accompanying talks and lectures. - read more