Created by world-renowned sound artist Janet Cardiff, The Forty Part Motet is based on Spem in

Alium Nunquam Habui by the English composer Thomas Tallis (circa 1505–1585). Written in 1573 for
forty voices, Spem in Alium is widely regarded as one of the most intricate and beautiful
compositions of the English Renaissance.

The Forty Part Motet re-creates a virtual performance of Tallis’s complex choral work that requires
eight choirs made up of five voices—bass, baritone, alto, tenor, and child soprano. Cardiff recorded
each member of the choir individually. Traditionally, when listening to a concert, the audience is
seated in front of the choir, but by placing the eight groups of five speakers in a large oval, Cardiff
creates an opportunity for visitors to move freely through the space and to experience the choral
composition from the unique vantage point of the performers themselves. Each speaker transmits the
sound of a single voice. An optimal way to hear and experience each voice is to stand facing away
from the speaker so that it is just behind the ear and the sound comes over the shoulder.

By arranging the speakers in an austere gallery, Cardiff combines a 20th-century minimalist visual
precedent with a virtuosic performance of a divine Renaissance text, creating an incredible tension.
Tallis’s religious composition refers to spiritual transcendence and humility; however, Cardiff’s
primary interest is how the body is affected by sound and how sound may physically construct a
space in a sculptural way.

Currently residing in both Berlin and Grindrod, British Columbia, Janet Cardiff works with sound,
movement, film, video, and photography. She participated in the Skulptur Projekte Münster in 1997
and exhibited in the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh in 1999. She also represented Canada at the
Venice Biennale in 2001 in collaboration with her partner George Bures Miller. A major survey of
Cardiff and Miller’s works has toured internationally including the prestigious P.S.1 Contemporary Art
Center in New York, which debuted The Forty Part Motet. A second internationally traveling survey
of Cardiff and Miller’s works, The Killing Machine and Other Stories was organized in 2006. Cardiff’s
projects for 2008 include participation in the 16th Sidney Biennial in collaboration with Miller and
survey exhibitions at The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Modern Art Oxford.

The Forty Part Motet by Janet Cardiff was originally produced by Field Art Projects with the Arts
Council of England, Canada House, the Salisbury Festival and Salisbury Cathedral Choir, BALTIC
Gateshead, The New Art Gallery, Walsall, and the NOW Festival, Nottingham. Sung by Salisbury
Cathedral Choir. Recording and Postproduction by SoundMoves. Edited by George Bures Miller.
Produced by Field Art Projects.

For additional information about Janet Cardiff and Thomas Tallis’s Spem in Alium visit the
museum’s Art Resource Center on the third floor.

This presentation of The Forty Part Motet is organized by Tacoma Art Museum.