Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
University of Glasgow
other islands
The research aspects of the composition are evidenced by this portfolio of material: A) the score; B) the MaxMSP patch; C) concert programme and flyer; D) an audio recording of the concert performance, available at http://www.nevercomeashore.com/2012/08/other-islands.html
/other islands/, for piano, violin, sax and laptop, uses MaxMSP to effect live processing of instrumental sound, along with a fixed soundtrack derived partly from an earlier work, rifts. It was written for ensemble Intégrales for a concert at the Hamburg Operastabile in December 2009, which was broadcast by Deutschlandfunk in Konzertdokument der Woche, 24th January 2010, along with an interview with the composer (http://www.dradio.de/dlf/vorschau/20100124, 21.05 uhr).
The work grew from a STEIM residency with Intégrales violinist Barbara Lüneburg, which focused on honing a style of playing suited to my live sound processing using a 'core' of simple notated materials traversable in different ways. It extends this to the ensemble situation, allocating different notational cores to each player at different times, demanding different modes of reading and relating to the instrument. In scheme, the pianist 'pulls around' otherwise conventionally notated material (8'12 in the recording), traversing it in improvised ways; in 'chippie', they use a contact mic to play the strings (from 9'50) to create sounds that meld with distorted electronic grains. In 'capriccio', the violinist attempts to decipher a graphical distortion of a particular printed edition of Paganini's Capriccios (2'50).
The concert's theme, Utopia, suggested a metaphor for the interplay of isolation and integration taking place in ensemble playing. other islands aims to enact this metaphor directly: each player has particular tasks with individually notated materials, dissonance results from these juxtapositions, and the electronic sound fights to tie the sound world together. Aesthetically, it draws on two extremes: Kyriakides' highly polished live electronic work, and Lachenmann's instrumental musique concrete.
