Output details

surface / tension - for solo oboe and ensemble

Première (version for solo oboe and ensemble): 18 November 2012, Christopher Redgate / CIKADA (conductor: Christian Eggen), HCMF 2012, Bates Mill, Huddersfield. Première (duo version for oboe and piano): 27 July 2013, Schott Recital Room, London.

‘surface/tension’ was composed in close collaboration with Christopher Redgate as part of his AHRC research project ‘New Music for a New Oboe’. The materials evolved directly out of the collaborative process, making full use of the extended techniques and sonic possibilities inherent in the new Redgate-Howarth oboe, combined with computer-generated complex rhythmical structures created using OpenMusic, realisable via Redgate’s unique virtuosity. This portfolio includes OM patches with scores and audio recordings of both ensemble and duo versions, in order to fully illustrate the research process. The use of digital tools aids the creation of new musical ideas, sounds and modes of expression through the creation of two kinds of ‘found objects’: algorithmically generated artificial spectra; and inharmonic spectra derived from the analysis of multiphonics unique to the instrument (the computer also being used to interpolate between these spectral types). A dialectical relationship resulted between these compositional strategies, shaping both the notation and approach to form, the piece oscillating between rapid, energetic and hyper-virtuosic gestural materials and moments of relative stasis (or intermediate states), but never settling one way or the other. The oboe and ensemble are in constant dialogue, asserting their autonomy and inseparability, whilst constantly reassessing their roles, a tension never really resolved as the sonic surfaces ebb and flow, coalesce and decompose. There is an endless permutational revisiting of self-similar materials, although there is no literal repetition. Here, the composition of an entirely acoustic piece is nevertheless inseparable from the development of computer-assisted compositional tools, purpose-built acoustic instruments and specialist performers.

Collaborators: Sam Hayden (composition, OM programming), Christopher Redgate (Redgate-Howarth oboe)