CONCERT 6 Quiet & Loud 7:00 PM - 8:45 PM
Julian Knowles Australia
Silent Latitudes (for Alan Lamb) 0:03:39
The sound materials for this piece have their origins as digital recordings made over three days at Alan Lamb’s environmentally activated wire installations in Baldivis WA. The source recordings were collected, at Alan’s invitation, whilst I was composer in residence at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1993. The original prototype instrument was a ‘found’ instrument in the purest sense, consisting of abandoned telegraph lines which Alan found in a field. The wires when acted upon by wind, temperature changes and wildlife started to ‘sing’. In essence, this is an instrument which is played by nature. By placing resonators (for my recordings I used polystyrene eskies!) against the wires one hears an evocative array of endlessly transforming timbral and harmonic shifts. The sounds produced vary enormously from hour to hour and from day to day.
Although these sounds are immediately linked to Alan’s music, there are quite marked differences in the way that I have worked with the wires in this piece. For example, I made extensive use of recordings where I interacted with the wires by playing them with drum sticks and placing a fingernail against the wires to produce buzzing sounds (both heard in the latter half of the piece). The central section of the piece reveals the scale of the instrument where enormous low frequency waves are generated by plucking the wires. It is also interesting to note that the wires (due to their high tension) take on a slightly microphonic quality, picking up and filtering sounds such as bird calls from the outside world .
I have used very little processing in the construction of the piece with the exception of some speed changes to obtain certain pitch and harmonic structures. All the sounds heard are thus very true to the original sources. The main compositional device used is that of layering textures in blocks of various durations. In order to enhance the spatial complexity of the sounds, I have mixed the piece in 5.1 surround using a Yamaha 02R digital mixer. A stereo version of this piece was presented at Perspecta 1997, however this concert marks the first performance of the multichannel version.
Davide Rossi 1970 Italy
The Silent Zikr 1999 0:05:17
I wanted to start from a picture, a supposition, as if beyond any word or any sound there was a deeper sound, an ‘initial’ sound or source from which the words and sentences were born. I began to search for the sound beyond the words and beyond the form of a Mantra, a Prayer, or a Zikr. How could I find the sound from where the words were coming from, how could I find the vibration which might have been the source of inspiration that might have occurred to a Saint, a Monk, a Sadhu or a Sufi ? The sound sources which I used were extracts of some original material of ‘Sema music’ from a private ceremony in Konya, Turkey, and from the singing of Mevlana Nezi Uzel, from the Mevlevi Order of Sufis (sometimes also called ‘The Whirling Dervishes’). I believe that the meaning of the word Allah (God is, God is not), carries the character of the entire piece, which travels in my opinion around the boundaries of form and formless, light and dark.
Eva Sjuve 1960 Sweden
Astro Turf 1999 0:03:01
Astro Turf is a small space, like a miniature world, where events are noticed by their sounds. Astro Turf space is on a grain of dust moving around, ending up in different places by chance. Astro Turf is on a trip, moving forward, and continuously changing the size and density of it’s own space.
Sounds from other indefinable places, sweeping the Astro Turf, blends with sounds from an open window, a mechanical shop, radiowaves from a kitchen, an occasional insect and a gas station.
Astro Turf is sucked in through a ventilation system into a laboratory. In a sterile environment Astro Turf is experiencing the sounds of centrifugal pumps, florescent lights, noise from power supplies.
Astro Turf has been developed by processing samples of sound and working with them in layers. The main interest in this piece was the time and space aspect, in the sense of moving forwards with the help of the soundtexture in the different layers. The atmosphere is changing in the piece, by making the size and density in the experience of sound change. The quality of the different samples is to give associations, not direct impressions.
Kim Suk Jun South Korea
Mi-Dong 1999 0:10:02
A study about movement and gesture, their interior/exterior relationship built around the easily discernible sound objects. 'Mi-Dong'( korean) can be translated as a word 'Flickering' or 'the state of a being whose movement is so small that you cannot tell it.' Realized in composer's private studio.
Break 0:20:00
Andrew Garton; Ollie Olsen: John Power Australia
Regenerative/Generative 0:20:00
Accompanied by visual artist, John Power and violinist,
Justina Curtis.
Regenerative Generative is an ever-shifting palette of sounds, melodic and
harmonic structures and dynamic visual interpretations informed by constant
reinterpretation of audible and visual inputs and outputs.
The basic components of Regenerative Generative are comprised of
compositions that commence with a generative underscore. This is then
manipulated by re-sampling the composition and folding pre-recorded sound
segments into the overall arrangement/mix.
Sound and MIDI data is then sent to visualisation tools that respond to
values such as pitch and velocity. Visual responses can vary from densely
layered collage to delicate, wire-frame 3D objects.
_Regenerative Generative_ is about the use of these tools as a means of
expression, both steering the composition away from repetition and creating
meaningful relationships between sounds and their arrangement within the
context of an 'interactive composition'.
Ros Bandt Australia
Black Hole 0:14:33
amplified air whistle and viola da gamba and tape
Lost inSpace 0:3:24
amplified prepared medieval psaltery
Sounding the City Link Stack Chimney, South Melbourne, 1998-2000
Ros Bandt brings to life the inner and outer sonic possibilities gleaned from the massive city Stack, a 55 metre chimney stack designed to extract fumes from the new underground city link tunnel in the heart of Melbourne's underground. Sounds captured from the 55 metre cylinder, the external grid and internal resonant surfaces of experimental concrete, along with ambient sounds of the industrial extractor fans and the builders working, are woven into exciting new sonic art . Ros Bandt performs on unusual sound sources such as the 18th century viola DA gamba, medieval flutes, the Indonesian mallet instrument, the gender and percussion to explore this dungeon. Sections of the steel frame itself were electrified in order to generate a whole range of original percussion timbres. In the studios of the ABC, Stack was able to be realised using a vast array of studio effects and extra recordings, mixed together with the site specific recordings. An elaborate graphic score records the design of the sounding of the cylinder now silenced forever with the dulled roar of electric extractor fans. Bandt's profile of the cylinder comprises 6 pieces. Four pieces were made which translated the materials of the architectural form, the red exoskeleton, the steel grid, the black hole. Two pieces were performed live in the cylinder, Paen, an elegy for the lost soul of the city for sopranino recorder and voice and Lost in Space for electronically altered medieval psaltery. The cylinder was sounded. The acoustic space is lost forever, for the roar of fans and cars.
Credits: MCC, ABC Listening Room