Composition Portfolio

This folio is comprised of nine electroacoustic compositions for multichannel presentation. They are linked together by their shared concern with micro- and macro-structural relationships between sonic layers, similar use of space (particularly Simon Emmerson’s ‘soundfield frames’), and exploitation of process departure or interruption.

Chronic Pulsatile Tinnitus uses saxophone and percussion recordings to address the above compositional concerns. BCN comprises three works, Barbecued Spanish Builder, Cerveza Beer and Siren, which explore interactions between field recordings and those of bass guitar and drums. Mr President uses vocal recordings of phrases taken from Barack Obama’s election victory speeches to examine sequence verticality, while Nothing But Sky, BCN Metro, Digital Fun Pen and Ahlan Wa Sahlan offer approaches to field recordings within the contexts of the issues common throughout the folio.

It is imperative that these pieces are listened to in their specified multichannel formats, as opposed to on a stereo system. This is to ensure the listener’s identification of sonic layers, which is not satisfactorily achievable over a headphone or two-speaker setup.