Listening to the Border - a sonic exploration of the construction and performance of identity in the Scottish Borders (2014)
The Lady's Well
This piece reflects the disjuncture between the visual and the felt/heard experience of place at the Lady’s Well, an ancient monument near Holystone, Northumberland. Visually the place is calm, tranquil, beautiful – somewhere to relax, to reflect, to be peaceful. But close your eyes and you could be anywhere in the wilds of Northumberland, ears buffeted by heavy winds, exposed skin quickly turning numb. It is an unsettling experience, whereby visual information does not match the embodied experience of being in place. The improvisation around the tune ‘The Lady’s Well’ (written by Archie Dagg) reflects this – it is restless, constantly changing tempo and character. This is further developed within the compositional process, with some unexpected and unsettling changes in dynamic, texture and timbre.
This piece reflects the disjuncture between the visual and the felt/heard experience of place at the Lady’s Well, an ancient monument near Holystone, Northumberland. Visually the place is calm, tranquil, beautiful – somewhere to relax, to reflect, to be peaceful. But close your eyes and you could be anywhere in the wilds of Northumberland, ears buffeted by heavy winds, exposed skin quickly turning numb. It is an unsettling experience, whereby visual information does not match the embodied experience of being in place. The improvisation around the tune ‘The Lady’s Well’ (written by Archie Dagg) reflects this – it is restless, constantly changing tempo and character. This is further developed within the compositional process, with some unexpected and unsettling changes in dynamic, texture and timbre.
Dunstan's Dream - an Anglo-Saxon themed soundscape composition, commissioned for the 46th Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering, April 2013
The High Level Bridge - an audiovisual representation of place
Dreams of Morpeth - soundscape composition commissioned for the 45th Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering, April 2012
Fog on the Tyne - soundscape composition of North Tyneside, May 2012
