EARequiem, an ElectroAcoustic Requiem written in 2001. EARequiem - an electroacoustic requiem for voice alone was premiered at OX1, A Festival of Oscillations and Vibrations (25-27 October 2001). Every single sound heard is taken from recordings of human voices.
"Voices fascinate me. The human utterance can present an enigma in electroacoustic music. The boundary between the recognisable utterance and the sounds created from a vocal source but transformed into a sonic landscape (wholly removed from the original utterance) is an intriguing and volatile continuum.The understanding of the human utterance can be further subdivided - whether the language is fully understood by the listener (where the words and context will be fully comprehended), partially understood by the listener (in which case the listener will hear some utterances as sonic events and some as comprehensible words and meanings), or an utterance that is completely incomprehensible to the listener (where the voice is mainly understood as a sonic event).
The entire requiem text - every single word of it - is included (in some form, whether recognisable or not) in this composition. The form follows the traditional structure and the text appears mainly in a linear fashion. Sometimes the text is hidden, but often it is brought to the fore. The languages used in this work are Latin, English, French, Russian, Welsh and German. As well as this text, there are also some other human utterances, such as laughter, the sound of the breath between words and fricatives.
Why choose a requiem? I wanted to take a form from the classical canon - something with an established form and immediacy - that could be used to structure a more substantial and extended electroacoustic composition. The structure of a requiem is comparatively prescribed, the text being taken from the Catholic common Mass with the exclusion of certain more joyful passages and the addition of the long thirteenth-century hymn Dies Irae.An obvious inspiration was the classic electroacoustic composition by Michel Chion. His Requiem, composed in 1973, is a powerful and important work that certainly influenced my decision when deciding what to compose as a more substantial electroacoustic composition.
The sacred connotations of a requiem were obviously an important basis for the choice of the text. Great power and strong emotions are suggested by the Latin text and lend themselves readily to an electroacoustic composition incorporating human utterance. Whether the composition is heard as a sacred work or not depends very much on the ear of the listener. I chose to follow the thought process of Chion where the ‘intention was not to deliver a message or a manifesto whether pro- or anti-religious. Rather, the piece is a personal testimony, in which I invite the listener to project himself, if he should like to dwell in this music of his experience and sensibility.’(Chion, Michel: Requiem (CD) p 15)
The voices heard in EARequiem belong to:
Glenn Archibald, Christina Bashford, Izzy Bunn, Katherine Cox, Laura Dear, Paul Dibley, John Goto, Dai Griffiths, George Jenkinson, Antonia King, Maria Nevins, Miles Palmer, Elena Petiaeva, Craig Prosser, Julie Reuter, Matt Sharpe and Yoanna Talopp."