Music and sound
SOUND ALONE (digital/electronic/radiophonic work)
Losing it - losing it…close your eyes. Close your eyes! You’re losing it...
Sleep… sleep – you’re losing it, losing it.
Trying to smudge that white line of consciousness.
Aching to fall... into oblivion.
Trapped in limbo between sleep and the desire to sleep.
Frozen beyond waking.
Half dead...half still, half awake? Not whole.
Can’t stop thinking, can’t stop remembering this cruel parade of itchy embarrassments, scratching away beneath closed eyes.
There is too much noise for rest, there is too much sight for blindness.
Sleep now, before it’s too late - morning’s manic birds are gouging you into wakefulness.
Sleep. You’re losing it.. .(repeats... again)
Islands of One - read more by following the link.
Leonardo sketches (1. Pandolfino's book 2. Anaxagoras) - two short pieces based on Leonardo da Vinci's 'lists' - marginalia in his notebooks, listing his belongings, things he had to remember...asides, besides....a mind incessantly in motion. The text is read by Edward Williams, supporter of many a composer and a fine composer himself.
Five-Minute Wonders
A small collection of short computer-processed soundscapes, midway between music and documentary (and sometimes with tunes). Each celebrates the 'wonder' of a particular time and place, and lasts five minutes.
A hotel receptionist with a particularly interesting and lyrical North of England accent. The music picks out the inflections and inner melodies within her voice, and perhaps comments wryly on the stock phrases she employed.
Waiting at a tourist attraction (a Roman fort) where there was an outside gift-shop and icecream kiosk. Listening to the repetitive jingle of the till, the children's chatter, the sounds of people as they enjoyed doing nothing much.
Root surgery (mine, I'm afraid). And all the time an inane radio competition in the background mixing with the sound of the drill and shooshing suction ...trying to make it sound like the sea....escape to another place...no luck.
A surreal taxi journey across Toronto, starting from an aural viewpoint way above the traffic, then descending onto the street, careering around town in the company of a burbling radio and a extrovert cabbie, of Ghanaian origin via Hackney....
Anything and Oranges and Something were made on an SGI Indy, using rt, Cmix, MixViews and various other software packages. You need a cab? was made on a PC using CoolEdit and AudioMulch, plus a bit of cmix.
Hard Cash (and small dreams of change)
radiophonic music/soundscape made from recordings on the street in London, fun fairs, money...and people talking about what they'd do if they won a million....those small dreams of change. Released on Sonic Circuits V (Innova/ American Composers Forum)Squeaky Reel - three-minute computer music piece made for Miniatures Concretes CD (empreintes DIGITales label). A fairly irreverent jig, made entirely from three short grungey sounds provided by the cd label. 1996.
Bells and Gargoyles soundscape, on Discus CD "This music is silent until you listen". A walk among the sounds of nocturnal landscape that moves from inner to outer worlds, imbued wih the sounds of bells.The Future (one minute radiophonic composition) commissioned by Yorkshire and Humberside Arts, 1995.
London E17
digital soundscape - made from recordings mostly made in London E17, i.e. Walthamstow, my then home. A series of short 'experimental films', except in sound. Recorded on CD, LONDON.In her own time
digital soundscape - made from recordings of interviews with my mother, Rita Norman, reminiscing on her childhood in war-time London. A journey through memory and emotion, obscured and revealed.. Recorded on CD, LONDON.People underground a digital soundscape made from recordings made in tunnesl under the Thames. Recorded on CD, LONDON .
In the stream (tape piece) - recorded on CD, Transparent things. This is the first piece of 'computer music' I made, in 1989-90, using recordings of singing voices and streams/rivers - both transformed and abstracted by digital processing. I stayed up all night for about 9 months to make it, on two ancient microvax computers at Princeton University - it was a blast.
PIANO
Two Thumbs Up (15 July 1978)
Commissioned by Clive Williamson as a one-minute wonder for the Guildford International Music Festival 2005 (played entirely with thumbs and closed fists).
Programme note: a one-minute true story...(remembering to inhale)…so me and linda cadge a lift to bob dylan’s gig in ‘78 from our stoned english teacher and very pregnant wife who realise they forgot their tickets when we reach guildford so me and linda get out and stick up our thumbs to hitch - festooned in beads and indian print - hoping for hunky hippies in a vw camper van but getting a nice clean st john ambulance man in a mini who took us all the way to where we sat down with 250,000 people and were just preparing to inhale deeply when we saw my little sister sitting 10 feet away – it sometimes seems like life is mostly thumbs.Composed for Clive Williamson to play at the 2005 Guildford Festival—(sorry, Clive!)
Fuga Interna (thirds) Commissioned by the Composers Ensemble (Clive Williamson). First performance, November 9th 2000, The Warehouse, London. All the Fuga Interna pieces are inspired by particular aspects of Bach's Fugue in B minor (Book 1 WTC) and by the experience of playing the piece. This performance by Steven Gutman for the British Music Information Centre.
Fuga Interna (ascent) First performance by Philip Mead, November 7th 2000, The British Music Information Centre, London.
Lardon Variation, commissioned by Stephen Gutman with Arts Council funding. First performance, Dartington International Summer Festival, August 1999.
Fuga interna (opposed sonorities)
short piece for piano solo, commissioned as part of The Debussy Studies Project , premiered at the Purcell Room, London in May 1998.Transparent things , commissioned by Stephen Gutman, with funds from the Holst Foundation
High Force commissioned by Steven Neugarten. Recorded on CD, Transparent things. Here performed by the wonderful Philip Mead. This piece is inspired by the waterfall in England of the same name, a wonderful 80 foot drop of cascading, turbulent water. The piece is almost entirely built from Fibonacci ratios (everyone has to write one piece like that).
Broken Circle Dance commissioned by Philip Mead First performance 1989 Cambridge Summer Music Festival ( Philip Mead)
INSTRUMENTS AND TAPE/DIGITAL SOUND/ELECTRONICS
Insomnia for oboe (or other instrument possible), percussion and digital sound. Commissioned by New Noise (Joby Burgess and Janey Miller) for performance at Blackheath Concert Hall, London. June 2001.
[b] contained , for clarinet and digital sound. Commissioned by Galway Arts Festival Containers exhibition. First performance by Paul Roe, June 2000, Aula Maxima Gallery, Dublin. Fuga Interna (II-Sequence) for piano, three instruments and tape. Commissioned by Jane O'Leary and Concorde. First performance, 20th Feb 2000, Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin. Currently in the process of revision. (Last time I looked this link was broken - coming soon)
Leonardo's Lists for tape, movement-triggered sampler with live video processing by Brian Johnson, choreography by Emma Payne, Claire Boyd, dancer. Commissioned by Elektrodome with funds from SW Arts and the Gulbenkian Foundation. First performance The L Shed, Bristol, November 4th 1999.
Trilling Wire (clarinet and tape) commissioned by Jonathan Cooper, firstperformance by him, ICMC 94 (Denmark) 'Honourable Mention': Luigi Russolo Competition, 1994
Icarus (four voices and tape). commissioned by Sonic Arts Network/Arts Council of Great Britain First performance, South Bank, London December 1993 Selected for performance at the ISCM World Music Days 1995, Germany. A re-telling of the Icarus myth, combined with extracts from Leonardo da Vinci's writings on flight.
Trying to translate (piano, tape and live electronics) commissioned by Philip Mead/Stephen Montague and the Arts Council of Great Britain First performance, ICA, London 1992.
INSTRUMENTAL and VOCAL
Helpful Instructions for Circus Performers , for solo percussion. Commissioned by Simon Limbrick. First performance, November 9th 2000, The Warehouse, London.
Dancing Day (soprano and horn), commissioned by Jane Manning. First performance, Princeton.
memory places (fl(picc), cl(bass cl.), vln, 'cello) finalist - Alea III Composition Competition. First performance, Boston (cond. Gunther Schuller, Alea III Ensemble)
Islanders (ensemble). First performance June in Buffalo Festival (resident ensemble, cond. Barry Webb)