Lost Songs (for soprano and live electronics)
- Submitting institution
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Brunel University London
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 046-188296-6129
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
- November
- Year
- 2017
- URL
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https://figshare.com/s/adf0c0d80a862d617140
- Supplementary information
-
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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3 - Music
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- In producing this research, I wanted to create a new work for soprano and live electronics, based on Ancient Greek fragments, generating the entire electronics part in real time, without the use of soundfiles created in advance. The six short songs for soprano and live electronics set fragments by Sappho and her contemporary Alcaeus of Mytilene, as well as one later, anonymous text. I chose those texts because of their fragmentary nature, as the resulting ambiguity seemed to make them especially suitable for setting to music: the poems, no longer complete, allow the music to provide an alternative completion.
Two broad types of treatment were designed in the Max live electronics environment – live processing of the voice, and real-time generation of sounds by physical modelling (using IRCAM’s Modalys environment). These were tested as the soprano line was composed in such a way as to activate the electronics at certain points. The patches were then given to live electronics realiser Oudom Southhammavong of Art Zoyd Studio in Valenciennes, who worked on improving their efficiency and reliability in performance. These performance patches were tested and refined during a residence at the studio with soprano Juliet Fraser.
The research findings demonstrate that it is possible to produce a rich and elaborate electronic texture by means of live processing and real-time physical modelling, for performance by soprano with minimal intervention from a computer operator during the performance. In particular, it is possible with recent computer processors continuously to alter the parameters of modelled sounding bodies in real-time response to features extracted from the singer’s performance.
The composition was first performance in a BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra concert in Birmingham Symphony Hall on 17 November 2017. Broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 followed on 15 May 2018 and 14 August 2018.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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