5 Landscapes for Voices.
This multi-component single output is represented by a score and a video of its performance (hyperlinked from the PDF). It was premiered by the Chorus of Royal Northern Sinfonia conducted by James Weeks at Sage Gateshead as a part of CoMA Festival 2020 on 6 March 2020. Film documentation was made at the premiere by Chris Adams for CoMA, and has been released across their digital platforms. The piece will be published in the second edition of the CoMA Part-Song Book.
- Submitting institution
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Guildhall School of Music & Drama
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- HARHOLA
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2020
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- 5 Landscapes is an immersive performance installation for spatially distributed singers exploring the replication of natural world sounds (bird song, white noise, water sounds, etc.) and the spatial parameters of those sounds (physical and metaphorical) across five imagined aural landscapes.
The aim was to create five distinct sonic environments for listeners to explore physically and aurally. The piece is accordingly built out of repeated box-form notation or ‘aleatory counterpoint’ (Gieraczyński, 1989) of un-synchronised but timbrally and gesturally similar sounds, cued primarily using meta-chronal rhythms: this removes the need for shared meter, bypasses the issue of exact synchronisation over distance, and allows for the creation of ambient musical textures built out of variegated multitudes of the same types of sound produced by different performers in the space.
The work draws upon several different strands of current ecomusicological research and practice (e.g. Grimley, 2017). It explores the impact of variations to performer and audience placement on compositional processes and the listening experience (LaBelle, 2010)—specifically directionality, freedom of focus, mindfulness, proximity and distance—and those connections between listening to immersive sound performance and listening in the natural world (Watkins, 2018). The work also responds to research relating to aural expressions of biophilia (Wilson, 1984) and contemporary sound practices that draw upon or incorporate ecological ideas in order to promote human connections with nature.
This response is developed in the piece through a simple task for the performers that requires them to write their own texts about ‘profound’ experiences they have had in nature, which are then read as a part of the third section (3 - Babel). Other participatory elements that encourage free expression include free tempi and at times freedom of choice of pitch or note-duration—common techniques used when working with amateurs, which take on new significance in this context.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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