Listening Assignment 2

The Sonorities festival is a festival of digital and contemporary music,

digital arts, and sound art, video and installation art performed in both Belfast
and London. The concert was held in the Sonic Arts Research Centre, a
brilliant venue that created a great atmosphere for the recordings to be heard.
The first piece performed was Olympic Games by Panos Amelides. This
piece focused on elements of speech and the sound environment at Olympic
games. It is composed of recordings from past Olympic games and displays
both the great achievements and the darker sides to human activity. This
piece achieved a lot of different timbral effects throughout. The exploration of
different vocal timbres was very interesting, with the piece beginning with low
whispers from various people then progressing throughout to loud and clear
vocal texts. The composer used sounds from the surrounding environments
such as running water and wind to add an atmospheric effect to the piece. We
as an audience are brought into this sound world and made to feel as though
we are actually present at the Olympic games.
The piece has two themes throughout. The first theme uses mainly bright,
uplifting texts and synthetic sounds which is then juxtaposed with moments of
harshness and eeriness for the second theme. This second theme gives rise
to the climax of the piece in which a news recording states that 9 people have
been killed. The music abruptly changes to an ominous feel with dark, sinister
sounds all played in the lower register. The use of silence for a few seconds
creates huge amounts of tension for the audience as we anticipate the next
sound. The piece ends with a loud applause as well as some tonal
clarification with a major chord being produced using electronic sounds. The
use of the speakers in the sonic lab creates a great environment for the

listener as the sounds produced come from different speakers and different
directions creating a sense of space.
The next piece performed completely contrasts to the previous. The piece
is called a Blue Bridge by Eduardo Patricio. This piece uses visual images as
its score, with the music changing each time the image changes. The
audience are taken on Sound walk across a bridge in Belfast. We can hear
the sound of the bridge creaking and voices of people in the distance. This
composer uses an interesting effect with the speakers as the sounds vary
from being heard in the distance or very close by for the listener, keeping our
attention throughout. This piece uses only sounds produced by the natural
environment to take the audience on this journey across the footbridge.
The next piece performed is called Trio dapres Schoenberg is by Patricia
Alessandrini. This is the first time in the concert we see the use of actual
musical instruments including a piano, clarinet and a cello. This trio do not
play conventionally and mainly focus their playing on extended techniques to
produce different timbres from the instruments. The pianist plays the strings
inside the grand piano more than the actual keys to produce a unique ringing
sound whilst the clarinet is muted and plays over this to create a sympathetic
resonance. The cello plays only the high register and an artificial resonance is
created by the electronics used throughout. This music is very experimental
with a lot of risks being taken.
Attending this concert has changed my outlook on music. Ive learned that
there are many different ways in which sounds can be used and produced to
create a piece that doesnt involve conventional ways of playing or classical
approaches to composing and performing.