Last month I was extremely honoured to finish up my College Musica residency in Venice, Italy, with the premiere of my collaborative work, Soft Matter, Hypersensitive Instruments. The performance took place inside the magical and rather ancient venue of Tese dei Soppalchi, part of the Arsenale precinct.
Soft Matter, Hypersensitive Instruments (2023) is a 20-minute work for 33 loudspeakers. It features spoken word and electroacoustic sound, with poetry written by my University of Sydney colleague and collaborator, Dr Geosmin Turpin.
It was an honour to recite Geosmin's poetry as part of this work, as well as workshop the words closely with incredible mentors Brigitta Muntendorf and Oscar Pizzo to realise the delivery and staging.
My thanks also goes to Thierry Coduys and Adrian Zanni, miracle workers of Ambisonic and WFS diffusion, Tommaso Zappon for his inspired lighting design, the entire technical and administrative team of La Biennale, led by Elena Leonardi. And, of course, a massive thank you goes to our Biennale Musica Director, Lucia Ronchetti for her support and encouragement of my work.
I am equally as indebted to my inspiring mentors Kyoka, Gerfried Stocker, Yoko Shimizu, Ali Nikrang, and Miller Puckette. You have shown me how vast our artistic world is, and how little I actually know (yet...)!
I am feeling relieved, tired, and already very nostalgic for the time I spent with my friends and mentors in beautiful Venezia. I hope I will find an opportunity to return to this beautiful part of the world, sometime soon.
Keep an eye out for little snippets of the work floating around online...and hopefully, some more development of the concept back in Australia!
You can read more about the work in the extended program notes, here.
