Venue: Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University (QCGU)
Location: Queensland Conservatorium Board Room
Date: Friday 24 March 2017
Time: 7:30pm – 8:45pm
Cost: Free
Explore the ecological, social and cultural contexts of our global sonic environments through immersive electroacoustic music inspired by science, nature, changing climates and interdisciplinary research. All compositions are created from environmental field recordings and draw on practices of acoustic ecology. The program features a world premiere with visiting artist Daniel Blinkhorn in addition to red sound and cradle_caldera, his composition that just received an honourable mention in the 2017 IANNIS XENAKIS First International Electroacoustic Composition Competition. Sonic Environments also features Leah Barclay's new work Hydrology, exploring aquatic ecosystems that cover over 70% of Earth's surface.
Location: Queensland Conservatorium Board Room
Date: Friday 24 March 2017
Time: 7:30pm – 8:45pm
Cost: Free
Explore the ecological, social and cultural contexts of our global sonic environments through immersive electroacoustic music inspired by science, nature, changing climates and interdisciplinary research. All compositions are created from environmental field recordings and draw on practices of acoustic ecology. The program features a world premiere with visiting artist Daniel Blinkhorn in addition to red sound and cradle_caldera, his composition that just received an honourable mention in the 2017 IANNIS XENAKIS First International Electroacoustic Composition Competition. Sonic Environments also features Leah Barclay's new work Hydrology, exploring aquatic ecosystems that cover over 70% of Earth's surface.
SONIC ENVIRONMENTS PROGRAM:
Between My Sky and Your Water - Ricardo Dal Farra
Entre mi cielo y tu agua (Between my sky and your water) is a picture in sound of the geography and culture of some Latin American regions, and its links with the geography and culture of the Nordic region.
Surrounded by water or asking for it, with clear and bright skies or cloudy days and long nights, maybe different languages but perhaps common hopes. Impossible connections, feelings, thoughts and sensations flowing between my sky and through your water.
This piece was composed in 2007 using sounds recorded by colleagues in their native lands, in the north of Europe, with plenty of water around; and by colleagues living and visiting the Cusco region, ancient heart of the Inca’s empire in the higher mountains of Peru, closer to the sun but far from the ocean.
Entre mi cielo y tu agua is part of the North-South project. An initiative by Nordic and Latin American composers to share experiences and to know more about each other’s culture exchanging ideas and sounds, and composing a series of electroacoustic works. All pieces are based in a common pool of sounds, created by the contribution of each composer in the group.
Hydrology -Leah Barclay
Hydrology is an immersive sound environment exploring the aquatic ecosystems that cover over 70% of Earth's surface. The sounds have been recorded using hydrophones (underwater microphones) in freshwater and marine ecosystems across the planet. The featured locations include coastal mangroves in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, Queensland’s iconic Great Barrier Reef and frozen rivers in Norway. The work explores the scientific possibilities of aquatic ecoacoustics with recordings including snapping shrimp, aquatic insects, river dolphins and Humpback whales, which can all be indicators of ecosystem health. Looking at the surface of a river or marine ecosystem, it is virtually impossible to detect environmental changes. The impacts of climate change are often visible in terrestrial environments, yet dramatic changes in aquatic ecosystems can go unnoticed simply due to visibility. Listening to hydrophones provides access to a noninvasive way of understanding changing aquatic ecosystems.
Hydrology draws on over a decade of Leah Barclay’s hydrophone recordings from projects including Sound Mirrors (2009-2011), The DAM(N) Project (2010-2013) and her current major research projects Biosphere Soundscapes, an interdisciplinary venture exploring the changing soundscapes of UNESCO Biosphere Reserves and River Listening, a project which examines the artistic and scientific possibilities of freshwater ecoacoustics. Biosphere Soundscapes and River Listening are the core focus of Leah’s Griffith University Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre. Hydrology draws on emerging science and explores the diverse sonic properties of water to reveal the acoustic ecologies beneath the surface of oceans, lakes and rivers across the planet.
the other side - Daniel Blinkhorn (world premiere)
Off the coast of Tanzania, on the small island of Zanzibar I happened upon a bazaar in Stonetown
with all manner of beautiful African instruments. I found myself drawn to a small, hand made mbira. This humble instrument buzzed and creaked and was far from perfect, yet striking a tine was instantly so musically agreeable.
ng’ambo in Swahili literally translates to ‘the other side’. I wanted to use the term as a metaphor similar to the phenomenon of seashell resonance, except in this instance, as one holds the mbira against their ear they don’t hear the resonant-like ocean sound, but rather a more dynamic abstraction of sonic imagery resounding well beyond the mbira itself and deep into the island of Zanzibar. It’s soundscapes and people. All the material within the work comes from the striking of three tines of the mbira.
cradle_caldera - Daniel Blinkhorn
Nestled within the Arusha region of Tanzania, surround by the uncompromising wilderness of the Serengeti, sits the Ngorongoro caldera. Named by the Maasai people as the ‘Gift of Life’, this ancient, collapsed volcano and its surrounds are home to a colossal array of differing species, all with their own uniquely audible signatures. The Ngorongoro reserve protects Oldupai Gorge, situated within the plains which are in close proximity to the caldera. Recent scientific studies have found that it may be the seat of humanity, in particular after the unearthing of the earliest known specimens of the human genus found to date. The Ngorongoro Caldera is one of several key ecological territories around the world designated as ‘Biosphere Reserves’ via UNESCO. The title of the work is a metaphor for the possible cradle of our collective species as it can be heard today. Important to the composition, it was very much the cradle of sonic inspiration informing every nuance of sound encountered in the piece.
In the spirit of a biosphere, the sonorities of the Maasai people occasionally, very actively intermingle with other species in the region throughout the composition to humbly contextualise the nature of this unique gift of life we are all so fortunate to share.
frostbYte – red sound - Daniel Blinkhorn
In the Arctic region of Raudfjorden, on a pebble strewn beach stands a small, crude wooden cabin. It’s said that on the same site stood an earlier cabin once inhabited by a lone trapper seeking refuge in the fjord after a terrible mining accident left him disfigured. As I stood in the hut, peering out through one of the many cracks that made-up a wall, I wondered what it must have been like, both for the trapper and others like him who chose to live in such climatically extreme isolation.
I tried to imagine living in concert with such an unrelenting, yet singularly wondrous place; a home amidst the striking duality of extreme elements, harsh winds and frozen ice, and the many fragile, delicate and captivating sounds produced therein. Within this reactive terrain of sound and light was a world so finely tuned it responded to every nuance in temperature, no matter how slight. As the sun arced across the mountain tops, ice fragments in the fjord dissolved, gently hissing and cracking. Occasionally, two fragments collided, producing strangely resonant harmonies refracting off the pebble strewn shore, creating a prismatic soundscape of colour and motion.
The majority of recordings found in ‘frostbYte - red sound’ are taken from a day at the hut and its surrounds. The two exceptions are a triangle, which is introduced to provide resonance within the piece (augmenting the resonance that was unexpectedly found within the ice and stones that populated the shoreline so prolifically) and a small dinghy as it slews through an icefield. This second recording occurs toward the end of the composition, and is used to express the rugged motions of the boats rise and fall as it pounded through the frozen fields of ice collecting in dense masses around glaciers. The omni present glissandi throughout the work represents the vertical nature of the surrounding mountains, glaciers and cliff’s that form the contours of the fjord enveloping the cabin. The title itself refers to the name given to the region in the early 17th Century by the English explorer and whaler Robert Fotherby, who referred to the fjord as ‘Red-cliff Sound’.
Between My Sky and Your Water - Ricardo Dal Farra
Entre mi cielo y tu agua (Between my sky and your water) is a picture in sound of the geography and culture of some Latin American regions, and its links with the geography and culture of the Nordic region.
Surrounded by water or asking for it, with clear and bright skies or cloudy days and long nights, maybe different languages but perhaps common hopes. Impossible connections, feelings, thoughts and sensations flowing between my sky and through your water.
This piece was composed in 2007 using sounds recorded by colleagues in their native lands, in the north of Europe, with plenty of water around; and by colleagues living and visiting the Cusco region, ancient heart of the Inca’s empire in the higher mountains of Peru, closer to the sun but far from the ocean.
Entre mi cielo y tu agua is part of the North-South project. An initiative by Nordic and Latin American composers to share experiences and to know more about each other’s culture exchanging ideas and sounds, and composing a series of electroacoustic works. All pieces are based in a common pool of sounds, created by the contribution of each composer in the group.
Hydrology -Leah Barclay
Hydrology is an immersive sound environment exploring the aquatic ecosystems that cover over 70% of Earth's surface. The sounds have been recorded using hydrophones (underwater microphones) in freshwater and marine ecosystems across the planet. The featured locations include coastal mangroves in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, Queensland’s iconic Great Barrier Reef and frozen rivers in Norway. The work explores the scientific possibilities of aquatic ecoacoustics with recordings including snapping shrimp, aquatic insects, river dolphins and Humpback whales, which can all be indicators of ecosystem health. Looking at the surface of a river or marine ecosystem, it is virtually impossible to detect environmental changes. The impacts of climate change are often visible in terrestrial environments, yet dramatic changes in aquatic ecosystems can go unnoticed simply due to visibility. Listening to hydrophones provides access to a noninvasive way of understanding changing aquatic ecosystems.
Hydrology draws on over a decade of Leah Barclay’s hydrophone recordings from projects including Sound Mirrors (2009-2011), The DAM(N) Project (2010-2013) and her current major research projects Biosphere Soundscapes, an interdisciplinary venture exploring the changing soundscapes of UNESCO Biosphere Reserves and River Listening, a project which examines the artistic and scientific possibilities of freshwater ecoacoustics. Biosphere Soundscapes and River Listening are the core focus of Leah’s Griffith University Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre. Hydrology draws on emerging science and explores the diverse sonic properties of water to reveal the acoustic ecologies beneath the surface of oceans, lakes and rivers across the planet.
the other side - Daniel Blinkhorn (world premiere)
Off the coast of Tanzania, on the small island of Zanzibar I happened upon a bazaar in Stonetown
with all manner of beautiful African instruments. I found myself drawn to a small, hand made mbira. This humble instrument buzzed and creaked and was far from perfect, yet striking a tine was instantly so musically agreeable.
ng’ambo in Swahili literally translates to ‘the other side’. I wanted to use the term as a metaphor similar to the phenomenon of seashell resonance, except in this instance, as one holds the mbira against their ear they don’t hear the resonant-like ocean sound, but rather a more dynamic abstraction of sonic imagery resounding well beyond the mbira itself and deep into the island of Zanzibar. It’s soundscapes and people. All the material within the work comes from the striking of three tines of the mbira.
cradle_caldera - Daniel Blinkhorn
Nestled within the Arusha region of Tanzania, surround by the uncompromising wilderness of the Serengeti, sits the Ngorongoro caldera. Named by the Maasai people as the ‘Gift of Life’, this ancient, collapsed volcano and its surrounds are home to a colossal array of differing species, all with their own uniquely audible signatures. The Ngorongoro reserve protects Oldupai Gorge, situated within the plains which are in close proximity to the caldera. Recent scientific studies have found that it may be the seat of humanity, in particular after the unearthing of the earliest known specimens of the human genus found to date. The Ngorongoro Caldera is one of several key ecological territories around the world designated as ‘Biosphere Reserves’ via UNESCO. The title of the work is a metaphor for the possible cradle of our collective species as it can be heard today. Important to the composition, it was very much the cradle of sonic inspiration informing every nuance of sound encountered in the piece.
In the spirit of a biosphere, the sonorities of the Maasai people occasionally, very actively intermingle with other species in the region throughout the composition to humbly contextualise the nature of this unique gift of life we are all so fortunate to share.
frostbYte – red sound - Daniel Blinkhorn
In the Arctic region of Raudfjorden, on a pebble strewn beach stands a small, crude wooden cabin. It’s said that on the same site stood an earlier cabin once inhabited by a lone trapper seeking refuge in the fjord after a terrible mining accident left him disfigured. As I stood in the hut, peering out through one of the many cracks that made-up a wall, I wondered what it must have been like, both for the trapper and others like him who chose to live in such climatically extreme isolation.
I tried to imagine living in concert with such an unrelenting, yet singularly wondrous place; a home amidst the striking duality of extreme elements, harsh winds and frozen ice, and the many fragile, delicate and captivating sounds produced therein. Within this reactive terrain of sound and light was a world so finely tuned it responded to every nuance in temperature, no matter how slight. As the sun arced across the mountain tops, ice fragments in the fjord dissolved, gently hissing and cracking. Occasionally, two fragments collided, producing strangely resonant harmonies refracting off the pebble strewn shore, creating a prismatic soundscape of colour and motion.
The majority of recordings found in ‘frostbYte - red sound’ are taken from a day at the hut and its surrounds. The two exceptions are a triangle, which is introduced to provide resonance within the piece (augmenting the resonance that was unexpectedly found within the ice and stones that populated the shoreline so prolifically) and a small dinghy as it slews through an icefield. This second recording occurs toward the end of the composition, and is used to express the rugged motions of the boats rise and fall as it pounded through the frozen fields of ice collecting in dense masses around glaciers. The omni present glissandi throughout the work represents the vertical nature of the surrounding mountains, glaciers and cliff’s that form the contours of the fjord enveloping the cabin. The title itself refers to the name given to the region in the early 17th Century by the English explorer and whaler Robert Fotherby, who referred to the fjord as ‘Red-cliff Sound’.