SoundAround was a mental health music/sound workshop and performance project co-facilitated with Erin Scrutton.
Over 10 weekly sessions we created a range of musical materials using voice, drumming, percussion and recorded sounds to create a final live interactive performance for the ‘Come Awa’ In’ opening weekend of Perth Concert Hall in Scotland.
**** Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman 23/0911, Arches Live!, Glasgow
……And down at the rough end of the basement, in a bare tunnel of a room, there’s composer Nichola Scrutton’s Songs For A Stranger, a 25-minute piece that moves beyond the limits of language into five segments of abstract electronic sound, accompanied by the increasingly fierce and brilliant vocal improvisations of Scrutton and her performing partner, Celine Hanni. There’s a central moment of meditation – titled Solitude – that recalls the deep resonances of Tibetan chant; then a final, shattering visit to what sounds like a dying rainforest, as a fierce richness of animal sound gives way to crackling cataclysm, and the soft, low sigh of a final breath….
*** Mary Brennan, The Herald (“…as a live performance, full of vertiginous vocal techniques, it was always impressive…”)
All We’re Skilled In was a film, sound art and heritage project run in partnership with Plantation Productions, Glasgow Film Theatre and Scottish Screen Archive. Erin Scrutton and I worked with young carers in Glasgow to create atmospheric sound tracks for silent film clips using original historical footage of the Govan shipyards and the people who worked there. The film below, made by Jamie Dempster, is a short documentary of the project itself. The film has had several screenings, including the Glasgow International Film Festival.
I was delighted to be invited to review Tara Rodger’s excellent book Pink Noises: Women in Electronic Music and Sound in Cambridge University Press Popular Music Journal.
I was commissioned by Glasgay! as composer/sound designer for Panic Patterns by Zöe Strachan and Louise Welsh. The work was further supported by a Creative Scotland New Music Award. The play was directed by Alison Peebles and ran from 19th – 30th October at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow.
“… sound designer Nichola Scrut(t)on’s noises off for comfort…” ****The Herald
“Nichola Scrutton’s sound design plays a starring role…” Broadway World
“…an atmospheric set and soundscape…” ***The Scotsman
“…while Nichola Scrutton’s ghost-radio music……add to a twitchy atmosphere” Times Higher
@zoestrachan
@louisewelsh00
@NicholaScrutton
Some of my works have been selected for ‘Soundgate’ – an exhibition of sound art in Aalborg, Denmark at the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, Utzon Architectural Centre and Platform 4. The works will also be streamed online for the duration of the exhibition.
I am absolutely delighted to say that I have been awarded a Creative Scotland New Music Award to support my composer/sound design commission by Glasgay! for Panic Patterns theatre production at the Citizens in Glasgow.
Panic Patterns is a new play by Zoë Strachan and Louise Welsh, directed by Alison Peebles. The show will run from 19th – 30th October 2010.
An excerpt of Sustenance has been selected for the Deep Wireless 7 CD produced by New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA), as part of the annual Deep Wireless festival in May, a month-long celebration of radio art. NAISA is based in Toronto and produces performances and installations spanning the entire spectrum of electroacoustic and experimental sound art.
I composed electroacoustic music for Simpozeum – a live performance by writer and artist Sarah Tripp.
Sarah created three spoken word/gesture performances: customs, objects, people, as part of ‘(Sim-poze-um)’, a collaborative installation event by four Glasgow-based artists created for Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts. The performances took place in the Jeffrey Room, Mitchell Library, Glasgow. The music for the performances was projected and diffused through a four-channel speaker system.
Hold Your Breath was a large-scale visual/sound art project set up to improve the entrances/exits to the Clyde Tunnel, with the participation of the Whiteinch and Linthouse communities at each end of the tunnel.
I composed the various contributions of source sound and music into one large 40-minute work, which was to be projected by radio into the cars traveling through the Clyde Tunnel.
Various groups were involved in creating sound/music source materials for the soundscape: Paragon Ensemble working with St Jerome’s and Whiteinch Primary Schools; Art Form with Bryan Tolland; Tigerstyle and Dhol Infusion drummers; and the MacAlpine Family all contributed. I worked with Paragon Ensemble in the schools, gathering up sounds/songs from the children, the playground and surrounding streets, and recorded songs at the MacAlpine’s (four generation) family party
(photos courtesy of Kathy Friend)
I am delighted to have organised the first GLEAM electroacoustic concert in the University of Glasgow Concert Hall. A call for works drew of 60 submissions. The event includes fixed medium works by:
Christian Banasik, Géraud Bec, Iain Campbell, Timothy Cooper, Jonas Foerster, Annelie Nederberg, Felipe Otondo, Dale Perkins, Calum Scott, Pei-Yu Shi, Graeme Truslove, Matt Walch.
Date and time: Saturday 20th March 2010 at 6 pm.
Free entry.
I am delighted to be organiser and host of the first University of Glasgow Music Department electroacoustic music event GLEAM on 20th March 2010 . Here is a call for works.
2009 PhD in Electroacoustic Composition, University of Glasgow
Portfolio ‘Hearing Voices’
Funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Award – selected from open competition (2005 – 08)
2005 MMus in Composition, University of Glasgow
Supported by a Bellahouston Scholarship and a Broomhill Scholarship
2004 BMus (Hons) First Class, University of Glasgow
The Goudie Prize ‘Most Distinguished BMus Hons Graduate’.