A musical catalogue of birdsong created by the 20th century composer Olivier Messiaen has inspired a remake for a 21st century innovation, the emoji.

As part of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s Opening Festival, piano duo Cobalt (Kate Halsall and Fumiko Miyachi) perform Catalogue d’Emojis alongside its creators Michael Wolters and Paul Norman at the Conservatoire’s Lab on Saturday 26 May.

The project forms part of the Frontiers contemporary and experimental music series.

We spoke to Michael Wolters, who is also the Conservatoire’s Deputy Head of Composition, to find out more.    

How did you come up with the idea for Catalogue d’Emojis?
I have a mixed relationship with emojis. Sometimes I despair when I see them but sometimes they work as the perfect comment. As soon as we started looking into emojis more closely, we found that they offered so much material: the selection of emojis decided on by the developers is fascinating, their official names and descriptions are sometimes very funny, the gender and race issues around emojis say a lot about the state of the world... there was tons of stuff for us to build a show with.

How do you go about interpreting emojis?
We use lots of different ways to interpret emojis. In two of the eight parts of the piece we ask for the pianists’ input to turn emojis into music. For example, we give them a rhythm and an emoji and they choose the pitches they want to use based on what that particular emoji means to them. In another part that deals with all the flag emojis, the pianists’ geographic knowledge defines what they play. Other sections are much more loosely interpreted. We laughed a lot in the process and we hope that comes across in the show.

How were you influenced by the 20th century French composer Olivier Messiaen and his example of cataloguing?
Messiaen spent a considerable time notating the song of all kinds of birds. Those bird songs made it into a lot of his orchestral and chamber music, but they are probably most prominent in his collection of piano pieces called Catalogue d’Oiseaux (catalogue of birds). We thought this would be ideal reference material when faced with a collection of random stuff, such as emojis. So, while Messiaen took birdsong and turned it into music, we are doing the same with emojis.

Could you talk us through how the event will work and what audiences can expect?
We have been describing this as a concert event. This is not really a thing but it’s about as close as we can get to a description. As an audience member when you walk in you will have a choice of sitting or standing. There is only one row of chairs that surround the stage, (although there isn’t really a fixed stage, more like an area where the performance will happen.) It’s worth making sure you get a seat because we think it's the most exciting place to be. The different elements fit together with the same logic as a concert i.e. they come one after another (and occasionally at the same time). There are lots of different elements such as music, dance, stories, information about how to write vegan music and much more. There is an emoji-based internal logic that holds everything together. 

Catalogue d’Emojis is at The Lab, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire on Saturday 26 May (8pm). 

Other Opening Festival events featuring contemporary and experimental music include Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (18 June), Thallein Ensemble + Jennifer Walshe (22 June), Moog Sound Lab (22-24 June) and FitkinWall day (25 June).

Tickets and further details from bcu.ac.uk/concerts