I’m looking forward to the Scottish Music Centre’s Composition Marathon 2013. The event takes place over the weekend of 23th March, with final performances at The Arches from 3 – 6 pm on Sunday 4th March. Tickets are available from The Arches and more info here.
Adrian Howell’s Lifeguard at Govanhill Baths.
Lifeguard was a site-specific performance created and performed by Adrian Howells, in collaboration with Mike Brookes, Minty Donald, Rob Drummond, Ira Mandela Siobhan, Jane Mason, Nick Millar and Nichola Scrutton. Produced by National Theatre of Scotland and The Arches in association with Govanhill Baths Community Trust.
Performances: 5th – 27th October 2012, Govanhill Baths, Calder Street, Glasgow.
Exploring the emotional and psychological effects of water, from its therapeutic qualities to our overwhelming fear of it, lifeguard re-evaluates the place of swimming in our lives as a health-promoting and life-saving activity.
Word of Mouth is fixed medium work (4′) that uses the human voice as the only sound source. Structurally the piece uses gestural phonemes to project a range of non-linguistic vocal sounds on the breath, which are extended and woven together to evoke metaphorical and spatial associations.
CAAA Centre for Art and Architecture Affairs, Portugal (Fringe Música Viva 2013)
Radio 6: Cafe Sonore, Netherlands (Musica Viva Sound Garden)
France Musique Radio: ‘Electrain de Nuit’, Christian Zanesi (Musica Viva Sound Garden)
Música Viva Festival Sound Garden, Lisbon, Portugal (2012)
RadiaLx, Radio Art Festival / 88.4 FM, Lisbon, Portugal
Lights Out Listening Event, Glasgow
A 30 min programme of my works has been selected for broadcast at the RadiaLx 2012 Radio Art Festival, which is hosted by Rádio Zero in Lisbon, Portugal.
Hit or Miss has been selected for the International Computer Music Conference to be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia in September 2012.
Joint composer with Erin Scrutton for Code Butterfly, a site-specific performance created by Curious Seed Dance Company for the Leith Festival, Edinburgh, (involving 5 professional performers, (dancers/ aerial artists, singer) and 15 young women from the Leith area. Performances: Out Of The Blue, old Drill Hall. Edinburgh.
Directed by Christine Devaney
Designed by Karen Tennant
Production Manager: John Riddell
with Jennifer Patterson, Skye Reynolds, Kaela Rowan
Fretwork (2013) draws its compositional language from the intimate physical gestures associated with playing the guitar – the act of plucking becomes transformed metaphorically into a range of percussive attacks, pops and clicks. While the piece unfolds as an abstract sound collage, fragments of recognisable guitar sounds emerge and recede amidst more decorative falsely extended vibrations and resonances. Available at Bandcamp
Selected Performances
Acoustic Frontiers, CKCU 93.1, Canada
Last Friday Listening Room UCSD, Enter the Octagon, UC San Diego, US
Sweet Thunder Festival of EA Music Listening Room, San Francisco
Radio Circulo FM100.4 Madrid
NoiseFloor Festival, Stafford, UK
Featured on Thrmnphone Netlabel Album, Spain
New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival 2013, US
Undae Project, Madrid, Spain
Lights Out Listening, The Old Hairdresser’s, Glasgow
Originally commissioned and created for High-Slack-Low-Slack-High – a suite of audio works relating to the Clyde River curated by Minty Donald for GI Festival of Visual Art – Lateral was made as a live, site-specific installation set in Dixon Street, Glasgow. Subsequent to that event I created a studio version of the work.
Dixon Street is a main thoroughfare that runs from the river directly up through the city’s main shopping artery. The aims of the work were to highlight a sense of disconnection from the river and to create multiple cross currents by merging the river sounds of Lateral and the sounds of the city environment. The work was projected over large horn speakers mounted in the street between two buildings, creating a view down to the river. Six vocalists added a further layer of human presence with their resonant tones both emerging out of and being subsumed by the undulating sound density of the site.
The starting point for the work was the idea of a ‘Lateral System’ – a system of navigational aids comprising shapes, colours and numbers, used to guide boats up river channels into ports and docks. However, the multiple resonances of the word ‘lateral’ took on greater significance in the work through the associations and digressions that emerge with the notion of a flowing river. Place names, numerical information from tidal charts and signal/radio sounds serve as signposts along the way, rooting the work in a real world place. But the perpetual flow of water and the periodic rhythms of a vocal landscape contribute to a sense of multiple spatial and historical resonances, and to ideas of flowing with and against the current.
Many thanks indeed to Claire Docherty, Kirstie Edgar, Jessica King, Morag Stark and Hanna Tuulikki for their live vocal contributions both on site at Dixon Street and at the closing event in the Clydeport Authority Headquarters.
2016
‘Inter-#6’ (Glasgow)
Curated radio show ‘Glasgow Soundscapes’ WebSynRadio (France)
2015
Curated listening hour at Brooklyn Acoustic Ecology Festival (US)
LOLG project Shona Island (Scotland)
2014
(25 Feb – 2 March)
Here. now. where? Saout Radio, 5th Marrakech Biennale
(12 – 18 January)
Framework Radio broadcasts
12th london, uk ::: resonance 104.4fm
13th amsterdam, nl ::: concertzender
13th vancouver, us ::: radio nouspace
14th south devon, uk ::: soundartradio 102.5fm
14th maribor, si ::: radio marš 95.9fm
15th lisbon, pt ::: radio zero
15th vancouver, us ::: radio nouspace
16th coimbra, pt ::: rádio universidade de coimbra 107.9fm
16th lisbon, pt ::: radio zero
17th ljubljana, si ::: radio študent 89.3fm
17th brussels, be ::: radio campus 92.1fm
17th vancouver, us ::: radio nouspace
18th london, uk ::: resonance 104.4fm
18th new york state, us ::: wgxc 90.7fm
18th brasilía, br ::: rádio paisagem
2012
Foldover, WOBC 91.5 fm, Ohio
Time/Zones, Akademie der Kunst, Berlin
AIR/EAR Installation, Radio-System, Argentine
High-Slack-Low-Slack-High, GI Festival, Dixon Street, Glasgow
High-Slack-Low-Slack-High, GI Festival, Clydeport HQ, Glasgow
After being awarded my PhD from University of Glasgow I worked as a Teaching Fellow in Music there for two years.
2009-2011 University of Glasgow (Music)
Teaching Fellow (0.6 fte)
Sonic Arts Levels II and III;
Practice-based Composition Workshops;
Contemporary Music Ensemble;
Lectures in Music and Technology;
Advising UG Dissertations and students on the MLitt in Popular Music Studies (Creative Practice);
First GLEAM concert organiser and host;
Music Education Project Organiser;
Course Administration.
2004-2009 University of Glasgow (Music):
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Songs for a Stranger is a collection or cycle of five electroacoustic works that draws metaphorical inspiration from the many senses of the word ‘stranger’.
Everyone feels like a stranger sometimes – when travelling somewhere new; returning home; confronting solitude. Some feel estranged in close intimacy; others find connection through anonymity.
Songs for a Stranger movements:
i A Fragile Memory (4’40)
ii Blowing In (5′)
iii Solitude (4’26)
iv I Said You Said (5′)
v In the Midst (4’39)
The piece was premiered in the intimate ‘dark space’ at The Arches LIVE! Festival in September 2011, performed and diffused over a 4-channel speaker system. I invited Swiss vocalist Céline Hänni to rehearse and perform the work for Arches Live. Sound diffusion: Graeme Truslove. Many thanks indeed to all at The Arches.
Songs for a Stranger was further supported by a Creative Scotland Quality Arts Production Award.
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 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.
A film about Hooks + Bites – a Glow Co-Create project for the Curriculum for Excellence. The project worked in partnership with Perth Concert Hall, Perth and Kinross Council, Learning and Teaching Scotland and Creative Scotland.
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)
Sustenance is a studio composition (14’37) that explores human interaction with objects and processes that make up our daily existence. The sound materials progress through sections, each defined by a specific sonic/material character drawn from the objects and processes used in cooking. At a higher level of structure, the work traces a general transformation from dry to wet, reflecting decay. Selected for various international broadcasts, SONUS online listening library and for NAISA Deep Wireless 7CD, produced in Toronto, Canada.
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.
The Dwelling Series (2010) is a triptych of vocal works. Multiple concepts arising from the notion of the title Dwelling gave rise to an interactive process of improvising and recording with MAXMSP, through which I sought to explore a sense of ‘inhabiting’ the work. As inspiration for generating improvised material under this complex umbrella concept of ‘dwelling’ I used three general metaphors to articulate events or states: dust (nature), cycle (flow/journey) and echo (memory).
The compositional process consisted of creating successive vocal improvisations, which were merged together, fully intact, after each improvisation was captured. Manipulation of the captured improvisations was strictly limited to the editing of gestures and textures in time and space to enhance or magnify relationships/conflicts that emerged by chance as each layer was added.
(i) Dwelling/In Dialogue: studio composition (17′). Listen
(ii) Dwelling/Encounters: pre-composed sound and live performance, in which two live performers merged and improvised with a pre-composed soundtrack projected through multiple loud speakers. Swiss vocalist Céline Hänni and I undertook a short intensive residency to explore extended technique vocal improvisation that culminated in the final performance. (12’30). Listen
(iii) Dwelling/In Reflection: live interactive solo performance (18′). Listen
PhD in Electroacoustic Composition – portfolio ‘Hearing Voices’ – University of Glasgow (graduation Nov 2009)
Funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Award – selected from open competition (2005 – 08)
MMus in Composition – University of Glasgow (2004 – 05)
Supported by a Bellahouston Scholarship and a Broomhill Scholarship
BMus (Hons) First Class –University of Glasgow (2004)
The Goudie Prize ‘Most Distinguished BMus Hons Graduate’.
Sound artist and facilitator in the creative team of Plan B Collective, who were awarded £30,000 for a Glow Co-Create project Hooks + Bites for the Curriculum for Excellence (2010-2011). The project worked in partnership with Perth Concert Hall, Perth and Kinross Council, Learning and Teaching Scotland and Creative Scotland. Hooks + Bites was one of ten education projects across Scotland commissioned to take artists into schools to work with pupils to generate creative content for the national schools intranet, Glow.
The Hooks + Bites project culminated in an exhibition in Perth Concert Hall’s unique media art space Threshold and included a digital audio-visual artwork on its soundbox, bank of screens and sound/audio unit in the public toilets. Plan B Collective was later selected to present a seminar on the ‘Hooks + Bites’ project at the 2010 Scottish Learning Festival.
Creative Team: Fiona Fleming, Nichola Scrutton, Erin Scrutton and Barbara Chalmers.
The Co-Create project has been set up through a partnership between the Scottish Arts Council (Creative Scotland) and Learning and Teaching Scotland. GLOW Co-Create recognises the important role the arts can play in learning, in supporting and enhancing the Curriculum for Excellence, and in developing innovative new approaches to learning and teaching through Glow.
Managed by Learning and Teaching Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Government, Glow is the world’s first national intranet for education. It provides a platform for online collaboration and sharing and allows Scotland’s 54,000 teachers and 750,000 pupils to work and learn in ways that have not been possible before. Glow is breaking down barriers and making learning experiences and opportunities more widely accessible to users across Scotland. Also read more at TES news.
I composed electroacoustic music for Move Mood, an observational documentary film by writer and artist Sarah Tripp. Screenings at X-Ray at the Persevence, London, Diversions Film Festival, Edinburgh Filmhouse, Artists Film & Video at the BBC Glasgow (in association with the National Gallery of Modern Art and the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art). Here’s an excerpt from the film.
Breathing Space (7’56) is an early studio composition that uses the human voice as the only sound source. As the title suggests, the driving force of the work is the breath and its potential to evoke different sensations of space. Breathing Space continually overlaps the border between the literal and metaphorical, and the ambiguous relationship between ‘natural’ and processed sounds. The form proceeds as a relatively free exploration of these multiple vocal possibilities but comes to pivot on a transformation from intense saturation to extreme reduction. The work was selected for a range of international broadcasts on experimental radio.
Composer/sound designer for Adrian Howells on his theatre installation performance The Garden of Adrian, created in collaboration with Adrian Howells, Minty Donald, Mike Brookes and Nick Millar.
Performances at Gilmorehill Theatre, University of Glasgow.