things lost things invisible

Things lost things invisible

for Ambisonic space and orchestra

2007

Work commissioned by the 50th International Festival of Contemporary Music "Warsaw Autumn" in partnership with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Poland.

Work recommended by the 56th UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers, Paris 2009.

Things lost things invisible is a hybrid work combining features of a large orchestral form with a spatial sound installation, exploring periphony. It involves a symphony orchestra divided into groups and a 3-dimensional speaker system to reproduce the electronic layer. The work is a large-scale acoustic experiment, where the entire sound environment is being treated as a body of a one complex instrument, with the audience located inside the resonance box of that instrument.

The initial sound material was recorded by the composer with the use of Ambisonic microphones in one of the most acoustically unique spaces in the United States: the Dan Harpole Cistern in Fort Worden, Washington State. This legendary space is located underground, on a former military base. It is characterized by a 45-second reverberation time and bizarre sound trajectories. 

Orchestral parts and the final shape of the entire work have been derived from those recordings, so the spatial features of the Cistern became the major formative principle.

Virtual soloists in the electronic layer:

Josiah Boothby - French horn

Toby Penk - trumpet

Colby Wiley - trombone

Live performance (Warsaw Autumn Festival 2007)

K.Szymanowski Academic Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Tamayo and Szymon Bywalec - conductors