Performance
Sonic Bothy Ensemble and Bothy Learning Space joined forces for some intensive rehearsals and a big performance, Diagonal Joy, in the Recital Room at City Halls in November 2018.
Everyone’s excited that Sonic Bothy Ensemble has been nominated for a Scottish Award For New Music.
For more information on Sonic Bothy Ensemble, and all the charity’s activities, please visit Sonic Bothy’s website.
I am super delighted to be part of the 2018 Space/Time creative retreat with Magnetic North Theatre Company. This is arrival day at the wonderful residency centre Cove Park in the west of Scotland. The sunset is stunning.
My fellow artists are Eoin Carey, Pat Law, Ross Whyte and Sharron Devine and the residency is facilitated by Magnetic North’s Artistic Director Nicholas Bone and Alice McGrath, Creative Director of Red Bridge Arts.
During the residency we will be taking an in depth look at our various practices through the question ‘how does an artist keep developing?’.
Many thanks to John Cavanagh for inviting us to perform on 1st July 2018 at Sharmanka Gallery amongst the wonderful, atmospheric kinetic sculptures.
Alex South and I further explored our Rough Breathing collaboration for voice and clarinets.
Here’s a link to the Sharmanka event. https://www.facebook.com/events/181727232538481/
We were delighted to be invited to share work for the opening night of Beton 7 Festival in Athens on 4th June 2018. The event included an introduction by curator Demosthenes Agrafiotis, my solo performance When Night Comes, screening of Wendy Kirkup’s two films Touches Bloquees and film from a score, and a Q + A session in conversation with Simon Murray.
Festival dates: 5th – 17th June 2018. Festival theme: “Visions-V_Ideas, Performances”…
“Visions-V_ideas, Performances” celebrates 5 years since its launch at BETON7. In April 2014, it was stated that the set of actions of the festival aimed at exploring the interface between performance and video in the specific frame of the Votanikos neighbourhood – the site of BETON7, Center for the Arts.
A review may be necessary, not in the sense of a conclusion but an assessment for future adjustments. According to a terminology, performance is at the crossroad of the living arts (arts vivants), which rely on the human body as the main tool, in order to found its artistic idiosyncrasy or specificity (dance for example) and the visual arts, where physical elements allow to shape primarily spatial structures (e.g. sculpture). At this crossroad, the video is entering, which is the field, the opportunity to create a new version of what is happening at the aforementioned crossroad from aesthetic and social point of view.”
Many thanks indeed to Rania and Demosthenes for their invitation, welcome and warm hospitality.
Zoë Strachan and I performed Static Flux at the Hidden Door Festival in Edinburgh on 29th May 2018.
Static Flux is a sonic seance! In this spoken word/sound piece Zoë and I are exploring narrative and time through chance encounters with remnants, fragments and the ephemera of past lives. The performance was originally created for a live studio broadcast for Radiophrenia in 2017.
Presented by Martin O’Connor and Platform
Written and Performed by Martin O’Connor
With Nichola Scrutton and the North East Recovery Community
Platform, Easterhouse 13th-15th April
The Scottish Storytelling Centre 19th April
Creative Team:
Martin O’Connor – Writer and Performer
Nichola Scrutton – Composition/Sound Design
Fergus Dunnet – Set Design
Hana Allen – Stage Management
Davie Green – Lighting Design
Alan McKendrick – Directing Support
Eoin Carey – Image and Production Photography
I was delighted to collaborate on the audio form for Kate Briggs written piece Corner Corner Volta Flip, which was part of ‘How Forms Live’ at the Mitchell Library for Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. The work was set up as a headphone installation in the Poet’s Corner.
Read more about Corner Corner Volta Flip
I was invited to be on the selection committee for the ‘Celebrating Women in Sound’ event in March 2018 hosted by Women in Sound Women on Sound at Goldsmith’s University, London.
Exploring the Unknown is a performance collaboration with Vernon & Burns, initially created for this lovely event in Glasgow produced by Sonically Depicting. Many thanks to Ceylan!
Have a listen to some Vernon & Burns on SoundCloud.
Through the Rough Breathing project I have been collaborating with clarinettist Alex South to investigate the role and use of breath as an improvising tool in live performance. Our collaborative exploration to date has focused on a) the psychoacoustic and sonic relationships between voice and clarinet, and b) breath and bodily breathing processes as potential material and/or structural devices within free improvisation. One line of inquiry, for example, centres on how the breath might sculpt the dynamic flow of sound-making in performance.
With early exploratory performances at The Glad Cafe and Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre (many thanks John Cavanagh), the work was further supported and developed through a CCA/AC Projects Residency in the Creative Lab at CCA 2018 and Tectonics Festival 2019.
In 2020, Rough Breathing was shortlisted for the Scottish Awards for New Music Ism Prize for Collaboration.
I am delighted to have been working with Sonic Bothy Ensemble since January 2014. Sonic Bothy was founded by creative director Claire Docherty, and explores, composes and performs experimental and contemporary music.
I post occasional updates – read more in News or click on the Sonic Bothy tag.
For more information on Sonic Bothy Ensemble, and all the charity’s activities, please visit Sonic Bothy’s website
Delighted to be support for the Drawn to Water album launch. Alex South and I will be experimenting with a new 30 minute set called Rough Breathing at the start of the night.
I’m delighted that my sound composition Wave Shift will be playing on Radiophrenia on Saturday 18th November at 8.20 pm. Source sounds for the work include voice, hydrophone and other field recordings captured during my Sura Medura Residency in Sri Lanka.
Listen out for Sarah Tripp’s Radiophrenia commission online or at 87.9fm. First transmission is at 6pm on 14th Nov 2017 with a repeat broadcast at 6pm on 15th Nov.
“One Hundred Glass Brains Waking Up is a fictional conversation between two people who begin as strangers. Without any prior social bonds they discover they are free to make each other up. This is escapist fiction pared back to two people in a room looking for a way out of social stultification.”
Performed by: Brighton Upton Trust
Composed by: Nichola Scrutton
Zoë Strachan and I first produced Static Flux as a live studio broadcast for Radiophrenia in 2017. The work was then selected for a live performance at Hidden Door Festival 2018.
Static Flux focuses on out-of-time memory states, and how they can be both static and in flux. We are interested in exploring narrative and time through chance encounters with remnants, fragments and the ephemera of past lives. Metaphors for our endeavour include the remnants found in second-hand bags and the pockets of clothing, or in notes scribbled on the back of black and white photographs. There is a melancholy air to these things, but as with any kind of haunting, also the potential for fear, and for deeper connections with our own sense of mortality.
Collaboration as composer/sound designer with writer/theatre-maker Martin O’Connor on his solo show Togail Nàisean/Building a Nation. We toured as part of a double bill with Aisling Oidhche Meadhan Samhraidh/A Midsummer Nights Dream (performed by Daibhidh Walker, directed by Liz Carruthers).
The tour visited venues in Lewis, North Uist, South Uist, Skye, Isle of Mull, Glasgow, Edinburgh. In 2018 the work had a performance at Tramway, Glasgow. Read more about it at Martin’s website here.
Sonic Bothy Ensemble’s first gig of 2017 at Mono in Glasgow gets a wonderful review from The Cusp Magazine. Read the full review here…
Sonic Bothy Ensemble have been in residence at Riverside studios recording tracks for a forth coming album.
Paritor Award – Sonic Bothy was one of several Glasgow Life/City Council partnered projects submitted to the National Music Council Awards, and received the Paritor Award for New Music in Education. Read more about the Paritor Award and other winners at the National Music Council website.
Performances include: Recital Rooms, City Halls, Glasgow, Mono, Glasgow, CCA, Glasgow, UNLIMITED, Tramway, Glasgow, ISME conference, RCS, Glasgow, SOUND Festival, Aberdeen, Atelier Public #2, GoMA, Glasgow, Counterflows Festival, The Glad Café, Glasgow
For more information on Sonic Bothy Ensemble, and all the charity’s activities, please visit Sonic Bothy’s website.
I was delighted to be invited by Wendy to perform Berio’s Sequenza III for her film film from a score in August 2017. More information and a private viewing is possible on request.
A Sura Medura exhibition is running from 21st April to 19th May 2017 at The Briggait in Glasgow. The exhibition includes a range of work by artists who have been artist-in-residence at Sura Medura in Sri Lanka.
Wave Shift, a new work made in collaboration with artist and illustrator Natasha Russell, is premiered as part of the Sura Medura exhibition. Read more about Wave Shift
Wave Shift was originally an experimental audiovisual collaboration with artist and illustrator Natasha Russell in response to the ideas and situations we encountered on the UZ Arts Sura Medura Residency in Sri Lanka. Natasha and I were in residence from October – December 2016, along with Sumit Sarkar and other visiting artists. Following the installation I re-worked Wave Shift into a stand alone composition.
During our post-residency collaboration, Natasha and I were interested in the way an understanding of the experience of a place shifts over time, between people, even at the drop of a hat. We decided to weave decaying memories, slippery facts and shifting folklores through sound and print to form a portable set that melts place and atmosphere into an imaginary landscape.
Integrating with the structure and printed visual landscape with the set, my Wave Shift audio was projected into the space as an immersive, abstract, evocative soundscape. Source materials for the work included a selection of field recordings captured during the residency and vocal sound recordings. Both the main thread of sound that underpinned the work, composed with a series of hydrophonerecordings, and the form, which unfolds as a series of wave-like emergences, draw on myriad notions of water as a bridge between real and fictional landscapes.
The installation was exhibited in 2017 at Sura Medura Exhibition, The Briggait, Glasgow and then Summerhall, Edinburgh
I completed my Seasonal Yoga Academy 200hr teacher training in March 2017 and am now a Registered Yoga Teacher. The range of practices are a very natural extension of my creative sound and voice explorations. The yoga practice feeds directly into the work in a very holistic way.
Many thanks to everyone at the Seasonal Yoga Academy and to all the wonderful people I have met and shared experiences with on the journey so far.
The final stage of our residency was focused on preparing for our Moving Out event. The other artists involved were Natasha Russell, Sumit Surkar, Samson Ogiamien, and Rose Staff. On the day, we were thrilled to have a big local crowd join us, and delighted that many people came down from the Colombo Biennale and the University Faculty of Visual and Performing Arts to join us for some or all of the time.
Overall, the day at Sunbeach was a wonderful combination of visual art, sound, sculpture, video, performance, people, food, beer, Arrack sour, sea, sand, laughing, chatting, sharing…and cake (what a fabulous day for a birthday!). In our exhibition, which combined some finished elements and work-in-progress, my sound work Sabda saha Pintura was available as a headphone installation.
The title Sabda saha Pintura means sound and picture in Sinhalese – through much discussion this seemed to be the most apt translation for the collage idea I was working with in the piece. Exploring differences in the English/Sinhalese languages was very intriguing – how or in what way metaphors or concepts translate, for example, sound, soundscape, landscape, environment.
During the afternoon an audiovisual tuk tuk tour was running – a collaboration between Natasha (Russell) and me. Three people at a time could hop into Sudu’s tuk tukand take a short round trip to visit Natasha’s work in local shops accompanied by my soundtrack.
The soundtrack combined recordings I gathered from those shopkeepers introducing themselves and their businesses, shop sounds, etc – the general store, jewellers, barbers, a fruit and veg stall. I also recorded an introduction to the tour in Sinhalese, with pronunciation help from folk at Sunbeach. Big thanks to Sudu and Chinthaka for running the tours.
Early evening, I accompanied Samson Omiagien with some live vocals for his performance piece with sculpture, which we had rehearsed in the lead up to the event. The evening finished with a fantastic Sri Lankan curry banquet.
Big thanks to Neil and all at UZ Arts, Chaminda, Chathura, Hasantha, Kari and all at Sunbeach, Maria and Jack, my fellow artists-in-residence, everyone I met.
In the final week of the Sura Medura residency we headed up the road for the opening of Colombo Art Biennale in Sri Lanka. I was excited to also have been invited by Shereen Perera to create a live score for the Video Jam event on the opening night. I responded with a solo vocal performance to a beautiful, strange and thoughtful clip of Sri Lankan film-maker Vimukthi Jayasundara’s Light in the Yellow Breathing Space.
The event took place on 2nd December 2016 at the ZMax Fairway Hotel roof terrace and was part of the Colombo Biennale Performing Arts Programme.
Here’s the Facebook event and a link to a film clip here Video Jam clip
As part of Made in Easterhouse at Platform Glasgow, I worked on the final stages of Stories of Easterhouse with the Creative Collective and Platform Associate Artist Katy Dye.
I recorded the stories, generated atmospheric backdrops through a creative sound workshop and composed the audio pieces for the final installation.
The map/sound installation is running through October/November 2016.
Delighted to hear that I have been selected for the shortlist of the Old Vic 12 2016 competition.
Good Days Bad Days was a 5-month research and development collaborative project with writer Martin O’Connor , Glasgow’s North East Recovery Community commissioned by Platform-to-Health and GRAND (Getting Real About Alchohol N Drugs). Participants were engaged in conversations focused on remembering their first and last alcoholic drink, to open up bigger discussions of childhood and family life, living conditions and wider society in Glasgow, and the impact of addiction and recovery on individuals and communities.
These conversations formed the basis of a composed, immersive sound installation, originally staged at Platform Glasgow, and then as a headphone installation at Outskirts Festival in 2016.
Subsequently, I re-designed that material as interactive sound track for Martin’s solo performance Mark of the Beast in 2018 ( “An exceptional piece of work” ***** The Herald ).
I was delighted to be performing solo on the first programme of a new BBC Radio 3 series – Exposure. The programme ‘explores the local alternative and underground music scenes’.
The live event is on 23rd September 2016 in Glasgow at the Glad Cafe. The programme will be broadcast on 29th September at 11 pm and available online for a month.
Radiophrenia commissioned me and writer Zoë Strachan to collaborate on a Live-to-Air commission. We performed live from the Radiophrenia studio on 5th September 2016 at CCA Glasgow.
In our collaboration we explored the state of being In Transit and how it disrupts the interior monologues of two people on separate but overlapping journeys of a slightly mysterious kind.
Radiophrenia is a temporary art radio station broadcasting from the CCA in Glasgow. In 2016 it produced a two-week exploration into current trends in sound and transmission arts.
I am delighted to have been invited by Dominique Balaÿ to curate a programme for broadcast on WebSYNradio from 16th – 30th June 2016. Alongside a selection of my own works are compositions by Alistair MacDonald, Bethan Parkes, Luca Nasciuti and Mark Vernon – big thanks to them for contributing.
Read more and listen at synradio.fr.
I was delighted to co-facilitate the drumming activities with Erin Scrutton at the Platform Glasgow Carnival Summer School for children and young people. Other activities included movement, circus skills, big makes, costumes. An excellent week in general: skills, fun + games, parading, performing – some really wonderful moments and a huge dose of fun!
