Excerpts from the score (2018)
Fictional Atmospheres: Denge
Music Composition
Graphic score for five instruments and field recordings
Commissioned for the Arraymusic Young Composers Workshop
Premiered by Array Music Ensemble, 2018
Program note
Denge is a “tuned atmosphere”. The piece is conceived of as part of a series of chamber music works called fictional atmospheres, each of which asks the performers to create sonic approximations of field recordings. With these pieces the field recordings are amplified in unusual ways inside of chamber ensemble to create listening scenarios in which audio recordings and acoustic instruments become sensorially entangled. The physicality of sound and the threshold between noise and tone are areas of interests for me with these pieces. Denge uses a variety of methods to explore this, mainly by augmenting the acoustic instruments with various audio technologies. For example, by using transducers on the piano strings and bass drum to amplify recordings through the instruments, and using contact microphones on the violin and turntable to create feedback.
The field recordings I worked with for this piece with were made along the English Channel (UK) in 2016. This coastline is home to a former Royal Air Force base called Denge. It’s also the site of the “sound mirrors”— a series of massive concrete objects that were constructed by the English military before WWII, as an experiment using sound to locate incoming aircraft (before the advent of radar). Currently, Denge is the site of an active nuclear power plant. The presence of the power plant has created a bazaar, almost tropical ecosystem in the waterways around Denge. Thermal pollution from the plant warms the sea and unnaturally enriches the biological productivity of the water. This site, and the “sound mirrors”, were part of an exhibition I made in 2016, at 811 Gallery in Toronto, called "Every sound is a small action and broke world".
Listen to an excerpt of "Denge"
Performed by the Arraymusic Ensemble.
Credits
Composition: Christopher Willes.
Performance: Array Music Ensemble.
Performers: Stephen Clarke, Colleen Cook, Sheila Jaffé, and David Schotzko.
Conductor: Richard Sacks.
Workshop mentor: Martin Arnold.