program notes

Brigid Burke Illuminated Breath ( Australia) 7:05

This piece uses air sounds and interwoven rhythms depicting races against time and reaching the finishing line. An energetic, pulse driven work for 6 speakers, it uses air and rhythmic forces from a Javanese gamelan interlaced with clarinet and air sounds. A layer of processed improvisations from the clarinet and voice dances above the intense and rhythmic pulse. Brigid Burke is an Australian composer, clarinet soloist, visual artist and educator, and has a Master in Music Composition from Melbourne University.

Eldad Tsabary Creatures of the Ice ( Canada) 4:40

Based on a recording by Katarina Soukup of shards of ice rubbing against each other in the Arctic Ocean, Eldad Tsabary has put together an imaginary story of a colony of ice ants who work arduously all winter long cracking ice, flying around and arguing about productivity issues. Frequently the argument gets heated, voices are raised and shards of ice are being tossed all over in a counterclockwise motion (like the spin of the Arctic Circle). Eldad Tsabary is Professor at Concordia University Music Department, Montreal, Quebec.

Lisa Whistlecroft Almost Nothing But (Butterflies and Clouds) ( England) 7:00

On a sunny July morning at High Melton in Yorkshire, England, I set out to make recordings of butterflies and clouds, while wandering around a typical English summer music festival.  This was the result! Thanks to Will Menter and Robert Normandeau for inspiration and source material, and acknowledgements to a large number of musicians whose names I don't know. This piece was intended as a homage to Luc Ferrari.  And then, when it was already made, he died - and who am I to write a homage piece for him? Lisa Whistlecroft lives in the North-West of England, and has been composing intermittently since 1996 using material derived from real-world sounds.

Sam Hamilton We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty ( New Zealand) 6:14

This piece is constructed from field recordings of a New Zealand coastal marsh at midday and recordings of an inner city building’s engine room, making reference to the environmental structure of most inhabitated New Zealand places, typically only a brief distance between sprawling metropolitan clusters and serene natural ecosystems. The piece shows the blurred relationship between contrasting environments, not by physically merging the two but by creating some sort of sonic puzzle being pieced together into a blurred collage of constantly growing metamorphose. Sam Hamilton is an Auckland based sound artist and organiser. Sydney’s NowNow Festival program says “Sam is busy young man doing what all busy young men should be doing - promoting and making creative, disturbing, and ingenious music.”

Lawrence English Ghost Towns ( Australia) 7:56

This is a surround sound (5.1) remix of Lawrence English’s 2004 piece Ghost Towns, which examines the hidden and remote settlements that litter the vast Australian plains, using only the sounds collected in and around the towns. The piece is an abstracted impressionist portrait of sound, emphasising isolated noises that exist mostly unheard, in the remotest realms of the country. Lawrence English is a Brisbane-based composer, organiser, writer and artist who also manages his own record label, Room 40.

Rob Godman TT ( England) 7:00

Table Tennis has been a hugely important part of my life. My first competitive sport as an individual was Table Tennis. I met my fiancé playing Table Tennis. As a composer, I have always found the sound of people playing the game to be appealing. Huge amounts of information can be deduced from the sound of ball on rubber - how much spin, how fast, what type of rubber. But; we have to listen carefully… This piece is a quadraphonic piece (4 speakers and a subwoofer) and uses time-stretched recordings of the impact of the ball hitting a variety of table tennis rubbers. Rob Godman is a composer, sound designer and programmer, and is a Senior Lecturer in Music Technology at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. He has a passionate interest in how sound behaves acoustically and has developed a number of techniques for controlling and building ‘virtual spaces’ for use within live performance.

Daniel Blinkhorn Resource 14 ( Australia) 5:14

The title refers to the number assigned to silicon, the major element in sand, on the periodic table of elements. Sand, of course, is a major feature of Australia – the beaches, sandy creek beds, central deserts, sandstone. This piece, using 6 speakers, brings to the listener’s attention some of the more hidden attributes of sand through a number of field recordings of sand in various locations and software manipulations of these recordings. Daniel Blinkhorn has lectured in music technology and composition, and currently lectures in composition at the University of Wollongong. His interests include interdisciplinary artistic collaborations, including multimedia and web design.

Roger Alsop Once Upon A Time ( Australia) 5:41

A six speaker collage of birds from the eastern seaboard of Australia and the sounds of sports that are very popular in Australia, but not represented in the Commonwealth Games. The bird sounds used are from the CD "Australian Bird Calls, Subtropical East",  recorded by David Stewart and available through www.naturesound.com.au. Roger Alsop is lecturer in sound at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia

Hasnizam Abdul Wahid Rahah (The Racquet) ( Malaysia) 7:00

Originally developed at Birmingham Electroacoustic Music Studios, this piece is an electroacoustic exploration of a game of badminton. Hasnizam Abdul Wahid is currently a lecturer in the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts at Universiti Malaysia, Sarawak.

Ivan Zavada Aquasonics ( Canada) 7:00

This composition is a sonic voyage into the mind of an athlete, during the multiple stages of a competitive swimming event, where self-motivation constantly pushes the physical barriers, which at times can be compromising and challenging, until finally the state of jubilation is attained at the end, during which a performance self assessment is subconsciously triggered. The sound sources are essentially water from a pool and a swimmers movements in the water, as well as sub-aquatic sounds. They were modified to represent what might be a complex network of inner forces regulating high performance output. Ivan Zavada studied electroacoustic composition at the Faculté de Musique de l’Université de Montréal (MMus). He has lectured at the University of Montreal and Concordia University in computer music applications and electroacoustic theory. He is currently a Lecturer in Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and mainly devotes his time to teaching and composition

curated by Jacques Soddell (email: jacques @ cajid.com, web - http://cajid.com/jacques)