Duncan Chapman

South Holland Sympony 2012

duncan — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:07:10 +0000

The South Holland Symphony is a project with the London Mozart Players and three communities in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire. Over the next few months I am going to be composing an orchestral piece for the orchestra based on material generated by participants in workshop sessions. The project aims to create a new piece of music which reflects the particular landscapes and people of the area.

May 12th Workshops………………

Here are a couple of things from last weekends workshops in Spalding and Holbeach.

The Spalding piece is played by a large group using instruments and voices speaking lists of sounds that they associate with their locality. This will become transcribed and mixed with drawings of horizon lines (as in the Field Of Sprouts piece) to create a section for full orchestra……

Spalding Workshop Mixdown 1

Holbeach Fog

In a small workshop with three enthusiastic young people we created this section of music. At the end the fog will lift and become a very low sound (double bass rumble) and very high one (Violin harmonic) with transcriptions of birdsong in the middle. The fog music is always falling and is an exploration of the idea of the land becoming inundated , in the past by the sea and now by the fog……………..

This is an orchestral simulation played by computer so some of the sounds are not accurate representations of how it will sound when played by the LMP.

Hobeach Fog

Demos: As part of the preparation for this I created these two short pieces for string quartet which were performed at LMP concerts.

1: Horizon melody and a field of sprouts…….. uses the contour of the landscape in this photograph to generate a melodic line played by the first violin, the second violin plays an accelerating and decelerating pulse following the edge of the field while the lower parts play rotating material based on the shape of the plants…..

which sounds like this

Horizon melody and a field of sprouts mp3

2: Rural Scene with Red Arrows……is an arrangement of this field recording for string quartet

Rural Audio mp3

the quartet version

Rural and Red Arrows mp3

sonogram of field recording

with thanks to LMP players

Nicoline Kraamwinkel (Violin)

David Angel (Violin)

Simone Van der Giessen (Viola)

Sebastian Comberti (Cello)

Growing in the dark @ HCMF 24/11/11

duncan — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 12:33:45 +0000

Growing in the dark

As part of this years Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

a late night performance of Rhubarb Sounds

Thursday 24 November

Creative Arts Building Atrium, 10PM
Free event

more information here http://www.hcmf.co.uk/event/show/246

photo © Alex Beldea

Here is a short version of the performance

Dark Januaries

duncan — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 20:07:09 +0000

Isabel and I scan the floor at Bretton Hall for interesting creaking sounds …………

Over the last 15 years Isabel Jones and Duncan Chapman have been collaborating with each other ,they have co-composed numerous films, recordings, installations and performances including their album ‘Corrosion’, the music for Salamanda Tandems performances and their eight year personal documentary project ‘8 Dark Januaries’

Since 1994 they have met every January to start the year with some sonic research that involves the creation of an original piece of music. This process has been partly one of self documentation as well as a way of reviewing the last 12 months in sound.

The works produced have therefore become a kind of snapshot of our individual and collective work and travels from the preceding year. By “documentising” ourselves we have sought to create an oasis of reflective practice that both looks back and forwards. On many occasions we have discovered connections in our sound palettes and worked these into the pieces.

Sonic materials have included field recordings from all over the world as well as voice, live acoustic instruments and electroacoustic processing.
January 2004

january 2004

January 2005

January 2006

january 2006

January 2007

January 2008

January 2009

January 2010

January 2011

Horn and Rabab

duncan — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:12:14 +0000

12 Years ago Isabel Jones and I made a recording of her playing a one string Rabab complete with creaking tuning pegs and me playing the horn through a harmoniser. Some of this became another piece but yesterday Isabel emailed me a version of the original recording for us to think about making something out of in the future. My breath control isn’t this good any more BUT it the horn is now out of the case and we are contemplating a whole new world of long notes and mysterious textures

Horn and Rabab revisited

Bamboo Forest

duncan — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 09:37:35 +0000

A short film made at La Bambooserie (http://www.bambouseraie.com/) in the summer of 2011, the soundtrack is entirely composed of Shakuhachi breath sounds played by Mike McInerney and collected for a “Turning Breath” performance.

In response to Ruscha

duncan — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 11:28:53 +0000

Three short pieces made as the start of a project with Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Museum in response to their exhibition of work by Ed Ruscha. All played live using a mixture of field recordings. This will form part of a performance installation at the gallery in October.

Made and played by

Elisha Millard aka Electric Farmer

Odira Morewabone

Webster Siame

Duncan Chapman

1st piece

Ruscha @ Wolves 1

2nd piece

Ruscha @ Wolves 2

3rd piece

Ruscha @ Wolves 3

More information on the exhibition here

http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/wolves/exhibitions

Conques , Looking up

duncan — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 11:03:47 +0000

Walking round the church at Conques, camera on my head pointing upwards, soundtrack from fragment of rehearsal that was taking place at the time stretched to last the length of the walk……..

The Sky 17th April

duncan — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 10:43:14 +0000

Instructions

1: Get up at 5am

2: Place camera on grass pointing upwards

3: Set camera to take one image every 30 seconds

4: Go back to sleep

5: Wait

6: When the day is done and its dark remove camera

7: Stitch images together

8: Add a random soundtrack

9: Watch and listen

The Sound House

duncan — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:45:19 +0000

The Sound House is an online project for the Wigmore Hall that draws on their extensive archive.

Over the last 9 Months I have been working in collaboration with Dotank studios (who made the excellent Isle of Dogs soundmap) and Rus Pearson (http://ruspearson.com/) to create a series of “rooms” that contain sounds and music relating to the Hall, its historical context and what happens there now.

The website is now online and is here (Opens in new tab)

http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/learning/resources/soundhouse

amongst the things to find on the site are

A timelapse film and audio of the auditorium during one day
A series of pieces created with students from Pimlico Academy taking archive programmes as the source
A piece composed from different applause in the hall
A series of recordings of the Heath Quartet in different acoustics
A piece composed from interviews with artists
A piece created from the sounds of tuning up

Semaphore Brass

duncan — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 11:24:39 +0000

A piece for Aldeburgh beach for a large ensemble of brass players conducted by Semaphore Flags

the signals

Materials

a film of some of the performance