ROTATIONS for 13 speakers (2022)
Rotations has been influenced by the process of electricity generation and mainly by turbine systems, such as wind turbines, steam turbines, hydroelectric dams. Based on audio events inspired by the sounds of electricity generating machines, it gives the listener the opportunity to experience a different journey into the world of electricity generation through auditory stimuli, which expect to provide knowledge about old and modern sources of electricity , but also the characteristics of the production process.
This project is a sound installation for 13 speakers, which investigates the relationships between sound and space, examining sound as an architectural factor for the creation of an acoustic space, and space as a dynamic indicator of a polyphonic distribution of sounds. Sculpting sound in space and space with sound, the work emerges a sound ensemble extremely enriched in terms of the organisations of its macrostructure, but also of its smaller structures. It projects a sound world of multi-layered focus, which the listener can explore both as a whole and individually.
Sections that listener can explore:
1. Electronomes (stereo)
2. Wind Turbines (stereo)
3. Steam Turbines (mono)
4. Hydroelectric Dams (stereo)
5. Production of Lignite/ Excavator and Train (stereo)
6. Macrostructure/ Artistic Approach of Sounds (quatrophonic)
7. Macrocosmos (13 speakers)
Light and Environment
In a dark room, isolated from any visual stimulus, in which lighting signals are driving in five small texts, the listener can be briefed on each acousmatic section’s electricity generating machines, the ways that produce electric power and their commission, as well as the history of electricity generation in Greece.
Rotations gained the first prize in artistic and multimedia competition ‘Hellenic Public Power Corporation Meets the Art’ (Athens, 2022)
Sound Attractors
Sound Attractors (2021), a work for alto saxophone and percussion, intends to construct a dynamical system of two abutting sound worlds.
The dynamical system is captured in tonal space of the work, and proposes a fractal approach in its form. Providing a functional stretching and folding compositional mechanism, it involves a repetitive expending symmetry of a rhythmical pattern, that is found through out the piece in its augmentation or diminution.
The two abutting sound words are designed by wind and percussive sounds, and formed by timbral points and lines. Placing the performers into two different spots in the room, sound gestures deliberate motion and generate adjacent trajectories between them. The textures of the piece are interconnected, interacted, continued, conflicted, and confused.
The work attempts to offer an experience of perceiving sound motion as aperiodic, random, unstable, and nonlinear, inspired by chaos meaning of “the state of disorder”.
The work is a collaboration with False Relationships and the Extended Endings Ensemble for New Music (Basel)
performers: Noa Mick (saxophone), Theodoros Vazakas (percussion)
Sound Attractors is commissioned by the Onassis Foundation and Stegi, Athens (2021).
The Passage
The Passage for seven passions refers to any passage, physical or philosophical, we can experience.
The passage as a journey, the passage of time, the passage of the sand through our fingers to the deep, the passage from childhood to youthfulness and after to maturity, the passage of life through the idea of death.
The work examines the sound as a moving mass, attempting to create waves of varying colours, that travel through the instruments, vertically and horizontally. The compositional process approaches the structure of the piece as a kaleidoscope of timbres, intending to generate blocks of sonorities that clashing and contending with one another. The selection of the pitches results from the notes that a single multiphonic produces. This limitation of pitches in the set of ten, gives space for exploration to other musical parameters; sudden changes of dynamics, tempo, and registers, sustained notes, the klangfarbenmelodie, and homophony, are some of the basic techniques that have been used in order to achieve transforming and juxtaposing textures.
'The Passage' was awarded First Prize and the Audience Prize in the 32nd Composition Competition of Alea III. First performance by Alea III in Marsh Chapel, Boston University Campus, US, 19th November 2016
Le Foyer
Le Foyer presents seven abstract sound images, which each one desires to encapsulate a single impression or moment in time and to provide colorful, vivid imagery.
The piece intends to produce an appendant gist to the ideas of music spatialisation and choreography of sound, by using three utilities:
A. Providing three sound worlds which interact and communicate with each other:
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a virtual world which presents an iconic reality: this world has been created by prerecording materials (sounds of each instrument, breaths, whispering, steps), processed in an electroacoustic composition, and diffused in a stereo set up.
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a palpable world, visible for the audience: this world is set in a cardinal room (the Foyer), where the audience attend. The speakers are also located in the same room. It is composed for seven visible and movable musicians/ performers who utilise physical movements into the space, reenforcing the idea of the choreography of sound as directed gestures.
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an invisible for the audience, pure acousmatic world; this world consists of 4 musicians and is set in a back-staged area, next to the Foyer.
B. The directed motion of sound materials in the space in order to create shapes and trajectories.
C. Enlivening the motion of sound through the physical movement of the performers into the space, under a regulated kinesiology.
EMVOES
EMVOES for kanun, lyre and stereo electronics, is a bicultural work which explores how the traditional greek musical culture can be approached within a contemporary framework. The greek word “emvoes” means tinnitus, and here, is used as a metaphor for what images, feelings, remembrances can be awake by just hearing the distinct sound of these instruments that associated with their origins and cultural’s identity. The work is also connected with tradition by borrowing rhythmical motives from greek heritage (dances and songs), as well as, utilising improvisatory passages that highlights a folklore attitude and is linked with the instrumentalists’ experience, skill, inspiration and imagination. On the other hand, the notation, procedures and methods that are employed in the piece are attached within a context of present-day composition; aleatoric features, electronics, clock based synchronisation, fractal forms, spatialisation. EMVOES intends to create a homogenous environment from acoustical gestures where instruments and electronics mingle in an identical and blurred manner. Acoustic events interact and contradict, are shifted in space, creating lines and shapes.
performers: Athanasia Stathia (kanun), Vassilios Mavromoustakidis (lyre)