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
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
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January 2005
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January 2006
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January 2007
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January 2008
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January 2009
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January 2010
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January 2011
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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
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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
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2nd piece
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3rd piece
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More information on the exhibition here
On Monday 30th May Isabel Jones and myself will be performing a 4 hour installation performance. This forms part of the ROH Sounding Out For Families week of creative activities (more information on the Opera House Website (http://www.roh.org.uk/)
This short track was made today (Thursday 26th) as part of our preparations for Mondays event. It features field recordings we have recorded on our travels around the world , water sounds from Ireland, France, Australia, Switzerland, Japan, Derbyshire as well as live voice , synthesised layers and a very stretched version of a well know piece of Tchaikovsky Ballet music (a prize for spotting what it is).
From the River to the Sea (Duncan Chapman / Isabel Jones 26/5/2011)
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(from BCMG website http://www.bcmg.org.uk/default.php?id=412)
Sequenza is a secondary schools’ project inspired by Berio’s virtuosic solo pieces for various instruments. Over a series of workshops a GCSE, AS or A Level class works with a composer to create a solo piece for one of BCMG’s players. These pieces are then recorded on CD at CBSO Centre. This project has produced work of an exceptionally high standard through allowing young people to; immediately hear even their initial ideas performed brilliantly; discuss previously unknown sound possibilities with the musicians; and find ways to develop and refine ideas through guidance from the composers. The project sometimes includes the added dimension of live electronics
This 2011 project was with Hamstead Hall school with Kyle Horch (alto sax) and live electronics
all electronic processing done with Audiomulch
The Pieces
The Secret Soul
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The Conquest
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The Sadness of Happiness
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Feel Free
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A Day Out
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The Hunt
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War of the Tribes
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Swiggles
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Hide and Seek
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Life on a Ship
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Dark Romance
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Jorell
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The Lost World
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Lost Love
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Path
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A project for the CBSO with EC Arts
(from EC arts website)
‘Found in Ladywood’ will involve the Leo String Quartet, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The quartet will take its renowned classical repertoire out of traditional settings and into Ladywood Fire Station for an autumnal Shostakovich Quartet number 8 performance. The project will also feature a unique commission in the form of an original composition for Ladywood. The piece will be created and lead by Composer and Music Animateur Duncan Chapman collaborating with Ladywood residents in a series of artistic workshops and the Leo Quartet to produce the piece for the final event.
The project has been inspired by both the CBSO’s ethos to reach out and engage new audiences, and ‘Lost in Ladywood’ a 2007 project by artist Simon Whitehead, commissioned by MADE. Found in Ladywood recognises that there is a large percentage of the community that have not experienced ‘live’ classical music – it aims to take classical music out of its traditional settings and into the heart of the community, making it accessible to everyone.
Event skills workshops.
The journey leading up to the performance will involve members of the community working with EC-Arts to identify a non traditional performance venue free of charge. The aim of the project is to collaborate with members of the community to change perspectives of a non traditional performance venue by transforming it for an event. A series of workshops will be implemented and delivered in Ladywood to teach a core group in the community event management skills. The community group will plan and deliver the October event by participating within all aspects of planning leading up to including the event day.
Artistic workshops.
Simultaneously ’artistic workshops’ have been lead within Ladywood by Composer Duncan Chapman, renowned for his experimental approach and technologically advanced festivals. A recent example of Duncan’s work was a Nintendo DS orchestra that took place on the beach at the Aldeburgh Festival. Duncan is working with members of Ladywood community to record the ‘sounds of Ladywood’. The sounds will inspire and form part of an original composition specifically for Ladywood to be performed on the 10th October 2010.
The Leo Quartet (Byron Parish, Jane Wright, Mike Jenkinson and Kate Setterfield) is a quartet of leading players from the CBSO who formed in 2004 and have built a reputation for vibrant performances of diverse repertoire.
Here is a short film of the event (opens in a new window)
Time Dance was a collaboration in 1997 between choreographer Catherine Seymour, artist Tatsuo Miyajima with Duncan Chapman (Composer) and what was described as “an extraordinary cast”.
The performance took place on the roof of the Royal Festival Hall with a sound installation (recording below) and projections onto the sides of the building. This co-incided with an exhibition of Miyajimas work at the Hayward Gallery.
http://www.tatsuomiyajima.com/en/index.html
Here is a recording of the sound installation that was installed in the roof garden on top of the Festival Hall, the Latin Names are the names of the fossils that are in the marble that clads the building and are spoken by Sarah Goldfarb other sounds include signal horns, sounds made from Oyster Shells and environmental recordings.
Some of the installation sound
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DSP was a project for the 2009 Making New Waves festival in Budapest
http://www.makingnewwaves.hu/mnw2009/about_en.html
The workshops had participants from Brussels, Aberdeen, Preston, London and Budapest working using a free online whiteboard and chat environment to create 2 pieces. The audio was streamed back to the remote participants using Tinychat and Skype so that the people involved could hear the results.
We made 2 pieces
The first used a text to sound method (with two of us in the hall at Trafo turning the text instructions into sound using Coagula)
Here’s the result of this process
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The second uses a shared online whiteboard so that we could grab the images and render these as audio in the hall
here’s the sound
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A film of the performance is coming soon
A project for the 2009 Huddersfield Contemporary music festival
Working with two groups of students to make an installation/performance in response to the exhibition “raw material” which features work by the artist Tim Head
http://www.hcmf.co.uk/event/show/76
What is the sound of electricity ? ……….
What is the smallest unit of audio information?; and image or sound – can we use fragments of image to generate sound material?
The results will be presented at a public performance during HCMF on Thursday 26 November and can also be explored as the project progresses through this on-line installation http://www.musicofelectricity.net/pixels/index.html (this on-line site has been designed and built by Sam Freeman http://sdfphd.net/)
I’m making a series of pieces for this festival at Kings Place , London. My event is on Saturday October 3rd @ 4.30 and features a number of new works made in collaboration with a group of young people and three musicians from the ensemble. We will also be playing a piece which is entirely generated by imgage to sound software (using this http://hem.passagen.se/rasmuse/Coagula.htm) on 8 computers linked to 8 loudspeakers. I’m also writing an acoustic version for Bassoon (Adam Mackenzie), Trumpet (Bruce Nockles) and Viola (Bridget Carey) so that the same sequence of sound events happen in both pieces.
Here’s the score
more information on the festival can be found here
http://www.londonsinfonietta.org.uk/event/kx-collective-sound-stations
and
http://www.londonsinfonietta.org.uk/project/sonic-explorations
Here is a photo of the rehersal
the piece was called
o1: compose <play>
Empty Breath : An improvised performance @ Making New Waves festival at Trafo , Budapest in 2005,
Mike McInerney : Shakuhachi
Duncan Chapman: Live electronics
Stewart Collinson:Live image manipulation
