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Ricercare or where the f*** are we?

Ricercare or where the f*** are we? was commissioned by Parkinson-Saunders and examines the activity of searching for musical materials and orientating oneself based on the materials that are found. It examines the relationship between scores, recordings and listeners. Ricercare, literally meaning to search out in Italian, is a text score that instructs the performers to select an event from a particular score and then seek to find the realisation of that event in a recorded performance on vinyl, CD, cassette or any other relevant media. The performance becomes about seeking out or tracking down a series of ephemeral musical events. The score is included in the portfolio.

In part the work stems from experiences in the library listening room when a student. Following the composition of the work I found this description of a similar activity by Jonathan Sterne in The Audible Past.

Imagine several partitioned cubicles, each of which contains a headphoned student who faces an amplifier and a turntable; on each platter spins a record of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. One student lifts his needle to run to the bathroom; another listens twenty times to a difficult passage; a third is frustrated by a skip in the record and proceeds directly to the next movement of the symphony; at the same time another finds it difficult to concentrate due to the volume of her neighbour's headphones… From Jonathan Sterne The Audible Past

Ricercare was featured in Lely and Saunders Word Events (Continuum 2011) and has been performed by Parkinson-Saunders at:

• Café Oto (2008)

• Listen Space, NYC (2009)

• Bath Spa University (2009)

It has also been featured at audiograft 2011 with a six-hour performance in the Yard at Modern Art Oxford. There is documentation of this performance in the accompanying portfolio.