Liquid Sky
John Young
Programme notes
To Vendela and Isabella
This work is an exploration of the sound-image of rain. In many ways, I felt the process of composing this piece to be one of revealing and expanding the myriad patterns and colours within the sound, normally noticeable only with very concentrated listening. Since I work exclusively with my own environmental recordings, I tend to see the compositional process as opening out of the richness of the act of listening itself, supported by the imaginative associations for which it can be a catalyst. Like many environmental sources, the sound of rain is extremely varied and, at least in theory, covers a whole range of morphologies from the individual droplet to saturated granular noise. In collecting source material I made numerous field recordings in different locations focusing on the sound of rain falling on different objects — such as leaves, windows and puddles — since it was clear that the variety of sound colours inherent in rain is largely defined by the nature of the surface it falls upon.
In processing these sounds, I tried to think about these distinctions
Liquid Sky was realized in 1998 in the studios of the Groupe de recherches musicales (Paris, France) and of EMS (Stockholm, Sweden) and premiered on March 20, 2000 during the GRM’s Multiphonies concert series at Salle Olivier Messiaen of the Maison de Radio France (Paris, France). Collection of sound sources and some initial processing was done at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada). The piece was commissioned by the Ina-GRM. Liquid Sky won 2nd prize at 4th Concurso Internacional de Música Eletroacústica de São Paulo (CIMESP ’01, Brazil) and was preselected in the 2000 Bourges International Competition for electroacoustic music. Special thanks to Daniel Teruggi.
Premiere
- March 20, 2000, Multiphonies 1999-2000
: Concert, Salle Olivier Messiaen — Maison de Radio France, Paris (France)
Awards
- Composer(s): John Young
- Year of composition: 1998
- Duration: 15:57
- Instrumentation: stereo fixed medium
- Publisher(s): Ymx média
- Commission: Ina-GRM
- ISRC: CAD500214730
