CTM Festival, Berlin

As part of Brighter Sound‘s Young Composers Commission, I was recently given the opportunity to attend the amazing CTM Festival in Berlin. It’s an annual festival for adventurous music and art, which couples first-hand experience with critical reflection, exchange and learning. Fellow composer Carmel Smickersgill and I spotted its future-leaning line-up late last year. We also spotted that the theme of this year’s festival – ‘Turmoil’ – bore a striking resemblance to our own theme of ‘Disruption’. We thus agreed that CTM would...

AlgoMech

Stitch-hacking, Autonomous Pianos and AlgoMech

What better way to kick-start this Brighter Sound commission than by heading to the hotbed of creativity that is AlgoMech. Taking place in Sheffield each year, AlgoMech is a festival of algorithmic and mechanical movement. On the day that I attended, the main event was a symposium, whose theme was ‘Unmaking’. This beautifully overlapped with the theme for this commission: ‘Disruption’. In addition to the symposium, I had the opportunity to experience an amazing performance/installation piece, as well as attend my...

Brighter Sound: Disruption

Brighter Sound’s Young Composers Commission: Disruption

I was in the middle of recording some vocals last week when my phone started ringing. To my surprise, on the other end of the line was sound/visual artist Vicky Clarke. She was calling to tell me that I’d been awarded a commission by Brighter Sound to write a new piece of music! Yes! The brief for the commission asks me to explore the theme of ‘disruption’ in relation to musical systems. It will be performed live by professional musicians in...