Edinburgh Napier University

  The text utilised in the work consists of fragments taken from the political writings by the 17th Century English Revolutionary, Gerard Winstanley.

Central research questions with it were: How to set text musically which was essentially document-like; How to make a meaningful sonic link between highly variegated sonic material; How to further explore questions of sonic spatialisation for effective sonic dramaturgy?

• the 8 channel electronic part was realised with the UPIC system. By using samples of key words from the work’s text, as a wave shape in the UPIC environment, there was then created a catalogue of contrasting sonic events sharing a common source of origin. Indeed the work plays upon the contrasts and similarities between and of the vocal and electronic components of the work for structural relief and tension - difficult when setting text not imbued with poetic rhythm and phraseology.

• the work’s subtly complex spatialisation structure (realised through Protools automation programming), confirms the importance of aural location for the effective appreciation of a compositional dramaturgy.

• there is the blending of post-structural, post-serial and probabilistic compositional techniques applied to sonic events from the micro through to the macro level (i.e. sample type, trajectory type, spatial ambit, the evolving and blending of structural sections etc.) this was aided and achieved by way of a variety of programming routines including programming platforms such as Open Music and MAX/MSP.