electroacoustic composer

Last Words (2005), for soprano, tape and live electronics.

An exploration of metamorphosis, 'Last Words' takes its text from the poem of the same name by Glasgow-based poet Eunice Buchanan. The text itself, like the live voice and the sound material, experiences extreme metamorphosis over the course of the piece. The tape part is derived from recordings of the voice and bricks (employed here as the sound of 'carbon', and symbolic as the building block of life). Live sound processes reflect the semantic ideas conveyed through the written text, perhaps even more so than the resulting aural text, which is presented as fragments and phonemes. As a result the listener may experience a role reversal where the text, whether spoken or sung, reflects phonetic or timbral characteristics and the tape part implies large-scale semantic ideas. The spoken and sung text, deliberately so, is not always intelligible.

The work is in no way a setting of the poem, but an interpretation which acts to convey holistic ideas put forward in the poem through sonic means. The treatment of sonic material in each movement represents the process conveyed in each section of the poem; Ashes involves granulation and pulsing motifs, Graphite is more pitched-based reflecting a process of solidification and bonding, while Diamond is fast-moving, suggestive of multi-faceted structures and crystallisation. On another level, the tone of the piece is somewhat morbid, as dominant motifs are those of death and resurrection, loss and regeneration.

The premiere of this work was performed by Anna Whyte at Academy Now! in May 2005

Excerpt from the 1st movement, Ashes: