Elena Somare Art for Sale at Auction

b. 1974 -

Elena Somare 1974

Like keeping your balance on a tightrope.

I have been whistling since I was little.

When I was just 6 years old I used to whistle opera arias, and my mother would show me off to her friends. Whistling was both a pleasure and a safety valve for me. You’re never sad when you’re whistling. Interpreting a melody by whistling means hearing it resonate in your body, expecially in your head, even more so than when you sing. This sound completley takes you over. It’s a sound that is yours alone, where you can escape and forget everything.
They say it’s very difficoult to stay in tune when you whistle. Like keeping your balance on a tightrope. But for me it is not like that, for me whistling is the most natural thing in the world, like speaking, eating, driving.
Than I had some incredible good luck. I met a great musician, Lincoln Almanda, and by working with him I realized that I could take the next step.
Lincoln is not just an extraordinary harpist, an artist with limitless technique and a sensitive heart. He is above all, one of those rare people who make you feel the reason for what you are doing. With his guidance and help I realized that I could use my innate talent and turn it into a tool for artistic research.
Whistling has always been considered a curiosity. There are virtuosic whistlers who imitate birds or musical instruments perfectly, doing things of insane technical difficoulty. They are wonderful jugglers and tightrope walkers, but its hard for then to make music. But that is my objective, even if whistling is more of an aggravating factor for a woman. Women could not whistle: it was considered something improper and illmannared. In many primitive societies it was a dangerous sound that attracted evil spirits. In Mefistofele by Arrigo Boito is the voice of the devil.
But I see its beauty. It can be sensual and angelic at the same time. Its a strange disturbing sound, always precariously balanced between a pure note and a shrill one. And yet it can be very beautiful, incredibly intimate. Whistling as a singing, as an account of the soul , because as I just said its the most human of all sounds, the least infallible