David Leith :: Work :: NUMTOT

Composition and performance for Vancouver New Music’s One-Page Score Project with Vancouver Electronic Ensemble.

This sonic interpretation of Howard Dai’s graphic score follows a spiral path.

The journey begins in the quiet upper left hand park area. Moving counterclockwise it passes through different sections of the city. Finally it comes to an end at the busy centre core.There are two types of sounds used. The first is field recordings from different locations. Image sonification creates the second type of sound. First I separated each colour of the original score into individual layers. Based on their shape the software then translates these graphic elements into audio. The final composition arranges all these sounds along the spiral path.

For this special virtual edition of the One-Page Score Project, community members were invited from a wide variety of backgrounds to take part in a free two-day online workshop on how to create a graphic score. Guided by Vancouver New Music director Giorgio Magnanensi, participants learned about and experimented with graphic notation, sound, composition, gesture and figure.The participants were then paired with a member of the Vancouver Electronic Ensemble to collaborate on an interpretation of their score, playing with the musician’s unique instrumentation and musical style.

Howard Dai