HCMF Open Call

Portfolio of works

Sustainable Composition & Creative Sound Practices

A comprehensive portfolio of work can be accessed here


Machair (2022)
Gathering Seaweed South Uist
Gathering seaweed, South Uist. Photograph by Margaret Faye Shaw c. 1932.

An acousmatic geolocative soundwalks that draw upon the natural environment, heritage and culture of Uist. The works combine original compositions, environmental field recordings, and the creative reimagining of archive sound recordings sourced from the University of Edinburgh School of Scottish Studies. Mapped to four locations on Uist, these works are available on the free geolocative audio app Echoes. Commissioned by Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre with funds from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Research England, and Visit Scotland. Machair (35 minutes) launched in September 2022, and Dùthchas (60 minutes) will launch in Spring 2024.

Since its launch, Machair has been adapted for radio broadcast (Resonance FM & Radiophrenia), concert performance (GLEAM Festival), and nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for Best Sound Art. Press coverage of the work included BBC Alba, and Press & Journal. In 2024, the soundwalk will feature in the international music festival programme, Nordic Music Days. A stereo mix of Machair is provided below.

These outputs, along with Orasaigh, will be cited as a ‘proof concept’ for a large-scale interdisciplinary project investigating the use of geolocative soundwalks as a means to provide culture-led placemaking that opens up new avenues to investigate place, identity and community through sound. By engaging communities in the act of listening, the project aims to highlight the role of place in generating local identities, connecting people to their natural environment, and uniting communities in shared appreciation of their localities, culture and heritage. The project will be scaled up across the Western Isles in 2025 through Leverhulme Research Project Grant, with additional funds sought from Creative Scotland and PRS Foundation.  Mid-term outputs and impact activities include a symposium, journal articles, album release, concerts and public engagement events. KE activity includes a partnership with international headphone manufacturer SHOKZ, exploring the potential application of bone-conduction headphones in the public arts and heritage sectors.

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Orasaigh (2023)
Orasaigh beach
Orasaigh – photograph by Mike Faint (2023)

A geolocative sound walk setting of Steve Ely’s eponymous poem on the South Uist tidal island of Orasaigh. Ely’s visionary poem, whilst always remaining anchored in the island, roams widely, exploring a range of themes related to Uist and the wider world – sea level rise, the crisis of the ‘sixth extinction’, history, culture, politics, conflict and class.

Mapped to a coastal walk around the island, this binaural work is structured around Ely’s narration of the poem with original compositions and soundscapes captured on location in surround sound.  This work was commissioned by Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre and is scheduled to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 series Between the Ears in 2024 (45 minutes).

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The Metalization of a Dream
Photograph of City University Performance
Galvanize and Fretwork performing The Metalization of a Dream, City University London.

The Metalization of a Dream is an open-form composition that draws upon Queer arts practice and the DADA and surrealist-inspired collages of the visual artists Hannah Höch and Eduardo Paolozzi. As with Höch and Paolozzi’s practice, this work montages found objects such as John Taverner’s In Nomine and the writings of Gertrude Stein that are reimagined and juxtaposed with composed and indeterminate materials to form an equivocal sound world. This post-structural approach employs John Cage’s notion of the coexistence of dissimilars, where harmoniously blended elements are eschewed in favour of sonic juxtapositions ‘that fuse in the ear of the listener’ (1961, p.12). This non-linear collaging of materials drawn from different spatiotemporal situations reveals an Otherness that looks to access the subconscious, political, and absurd. 

Commissioned by Galvanize Ensemble. Premiered by Galvanize Ensemble and Fretwork at Newcastle Lit & Phil in February 2019 with funds from The RVW Trust, Arts Council of England, Britten Pears Foundation, and PRS Foundation (8-30 minutes in duration). An expanded version of the work was premiered in January 2021, as part of SOUND Music Festival, Aberdeen. To date, additional performances include Café OTO, City University Concert Series and several streamed events, namely nonclassical, NottNOISE New Music Marathon, and Lit & Phil Online. In November 2020, the work was the focus of a 1-hour radio broadcast on Resonance FM, that featured a pre-recorded performance of the work and interview.

Cage, J. (1961). Silence. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.

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