Image © Nichola Scrutton
New Worlds is a spoken word / sound composition created with writer Martin O’Connor in Autumn 2022. The piece weaves together recordings from Your Voice in Greenock, Inverclyde, Martin’s poems, field and other recordings.
Read more about the project and listen to New Worlds at: http://www.martinoconnor.info/new-worlds.html
Dream Stream was commissioned by Radio Art Zone as part of their 100-day programme inviting 100 artists to create 22-hour long radio works for European Capital of Culture at Esch 2022, Luxembourg. https://radioart.zone
Dream Stream weaves together field recordings, voice, fragments of text, visualisations, stories, performance and archive materials in a sonic contemplation of inner / outer landscapes. The sound of water is a thread across the whole duration. From that constantly shifting ‘surface’, various other sound worlds emerge and recede in a transient dream-like encounter.
In case it’s of interest, I have a Mailing List for occasional news updates – Join Mailing List
Many thanks indeed to Sarah, Knut and all at Radio Art Zone.
Artwork © Nichola Scrutton
I’m thrilled to say that I have been awarded Creative Scotland funding for the Night Vision project over 2022-23.
As part of a general website overhaul, I have temporarily removed background information, credits and plans for Night Vision so I can update all the details.
In the meantime, I’ll be posting news about select performances and a recording, to be released first on Bandcamp in early April and then across all music platforms on 28th April so please do connect / follow for updates. Many thanks.
Many thanks indeed to everyone who has supported Night Vision.
Zoë Strachan and I had a two-week residency at Glasgow Project Room in April/May 2022.
In our residency we were engaging in a process of ‘test-pitting’ to develop new work around themes of excavation as a means of opening an aperture onto fragile lines of connection between inner and outer landscapes. We shared some work-in-progress at the end of the residency in a public event that included a performance and a Q+A chat.
In archaeology a test-pit is a trial, a delving in to reveal layers, fragments of artefacts, the potential of a site of enquiry. It enables a snapshot of composition and decomposition, of life cycle and decay in the earth. Grids and tracing map the process.
Zoë and I have an ongoing collaboration making sound art works and experimental radio combining newly written and found text, composed sound, field recordings, found sound, voice and improvisation.
More information and Scottish tour dates for summer 2022 at Company of Wolves website.
Director – Ewan Downie
Associate Director – Brian Ferguson
Set and Costume Designer – Alisa Kalyanova
Lighting Designer – Benny Goodman
Sound Designer – Nichola Scrutton
Cast – Lawrence Boothman, Esme Baylay, Oat Jenner, Belle Jones, Megan Lovat
Technical Stage Manager – Stephen Cunningham
Wardrobe supervisor and Costume-maker – Catherine Barthram
Producer – Corinne Salisbury
Production Manager – Elleanor Taylor
Zoë Strachan and I continue our exploration of performing live experimental radio artwork. Up Closeness is a dialogue between two green urban spaces, a close look at the local. An attempt to find small connections amid the dislocation from everyday life. Field recordings and voice sounds are combined with found and composed text to animate distinct temporal spaces. Live improvisation and embedded writing practice enact a mimetic re-inhabiting of space.
We first performed Up Closeness as a live broadcast at Radiophrenia Glasgow on 20th November 2020 in CCA Glasgow., in the hour before lockdown. Here’s a clip…
Martin O’Connor and I collaborated once again on a co-commission from Outspoken Arts Scotland. We were invited to develop a proposal for a new theatre production in Paisley called Love Street – The Musical. We spent two months out and about visiting organisations and gathering stories from people in Paisley who have memories and connections to Love Street.
The Mark of the Beast – a collaboration as composer/sound artist with writer/theatre-maker Martin O’Connor that explores lived experience of alcohol and addiction in Glasgow.
Between November 2015 and March 2016, Martin and I worked with the North East Recovery Community to create materials for a sound installation Good Days Bad Days. I composed a ‘soundtrack’ from the many voices/stories of participant’s experiences that was projected as an immersive installation at Platform Glasgow. The work was commissioned by GEAC Platform-to-Health and GRAND (Getting Real About Alcohol n Drugs).
The installation was research and development for Martin’s live solo show The Mark of the Beast , for which I re-composed the Good Days Bad Days material in 2018.
***** The Herald (Platform Glasgow)
**** The Wee Review (Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh)
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.
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
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.
Sabda saha Pintura is a sound collage composed on site during the six-week Sura Medura residency with UZ Arts in Sri Lanka using a selection of field recordings captured early in the residency. Repetition and fast cut edits try at the same time to capture something of the sensory experience on arrival in Hikkaduwa and reveal detail in a dense sound world. Sabda saha Pintura had its first airing as a headphone installation at Moving Out for the Colombo Art Biennale in November 2016.
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 thrilled to be selected for a six-week Sura Medura residency with UZ Arts from October to December 2016. The Sura Medura residency on this occasion was being hosted in Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka. My fellow artists were Natasha Russell and Sumit Sarkar, and two other artists arrived later in the residency – Martin Janicek and Samson Ogiamien. Early experience after arrival was a whirlwind of sensations and there was definitely a process of settling into Sunbeach and adjusting – heat, humidity, sounds, smells, surf, swimming, dogs, jungle, mozzies, food, walks, and meeting many warm friendly folk along the way sharing experiences, tips and ideas.
As part of the residency we travelled to Colombo and gave presentations to staff and students in the University Faculty of Visual and Performing Arts in week 3. That was a really good day – as well as meeting people, we were fortunate to be shown round all the art departments then had lunch before travelling back.
The sound environment is generally very dense and I spent quite a bit of time actively listening and drawing.The area has two main aspect – beach and jungle – and each has its own distinct soundscape. On the beach side the sea roars continuously as the surf thunders in and on the jungle side the air is thick with heat, bird song, massive trees rustling and people going about their daily lives. A railway line runs between the two through much of the area and regular trains, horns and bells punctuate the air. In the mix are a whole rich array of sounds – the hollering voices of people selling at markets and on the street, the honking and revving of huge buses overtaking other vehicles at breakneck speed (treacherous), thunderstorms and torrential rain, intermittent firework eruptions, the bread, fish and other vans making melodic announcements and so on. I created two soundscape pieces – Sabda saha Pintura and Wave Shift.
In week five we hosted a Moving Out public event at Sunbeach as part of the Colombo Art Biennale, which was a big success. And actually it was on my birthday so an extra cake was involved at the end of the night. Read a bit more info on that at Moving Out. Finally, we had a trip up to Colombo for the opening of the Biennale. I also had been invited to perform/score a film clip at the opening as part of Video Jam. More info on that at Video Jam…
Huge 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.
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.
At First Light is a studio composition (8’49). Arising from an ongoing strand of exploration around ideas of ‘ephemeral’, At First Light is a vocal meditation inspired by the play of light at sunrise and a notion that each moment may be filled with the past, present and future. The process of making the piece involved repeated exploration of the material ideas using a simple MAXMSP patch, with the final work being created in a single real-time improvisation. While a version of the piece was ultimately fixed to become At First Light, inherent in the process and the material is an idea of transient evolution – emergence, cycle and decay.
The piece was selected for:
‘Women in Sound/Women on Sound‘ Symposium at Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts (LICA) (2015)
New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival Concert 35 (NYCEMF) (2016)
‘Tomorrow, Today will be Yesterday‘ group installation at CAAA, Guimaraes, Portugal, ELO, Victoria BC, Canada, and LCGA, Limerick, Ireland as part of the Screen Dance Festival.
I was absolutely delighted to be one of four composers selected for the Choreographers and Composers Lab 2015 – a two-week intensive residency with Phoenix Dance Theatre in Leeds. The residency was led by Sharon Watson and Ken Hesketh, with guest speakers – Robert Cohan, Peter Weigold, Zoé Martlew, Dr Jo Butterworth, Mike Dixon, Didy Veldman.
Choreographers: Adrienne Hart, Mbulelo Ndabeni, Claire Lefèvre and Sandrine Monin.
Composers: Roberto David Rusconi, Nichola Scrutton, Sarah Westwood and Eloise Gynn.
Dancers: Hannah Bateman, Francesca Caselli, Andreas Grimaldier, Joshua Harriette, Carmen Marfil, Marie Astrid Mence, Ben Mitchell, Vanessa Pang, Alice Shepherdson, Sam Vaherlehto , Prentice Whitlow.
Musicians: Hara Alonso, Oliver Dover, Sean Hamilton, Becky Yen-Huan
Sonnets was a series of live, interactive, largely improvised sound poems, and was created for a Radiophrenia live-to-air commission in 2015. The work drew on the root meanings of the title word – from ‘son’ (song) and ‘sonus’ (sound) – rather than the traditional poetic form. I used minimal processing, and focused instead on weaving together a palette of breathy sounds, phonemic fragments and vocal gestures into a series of self-contained but interlinked sound worlds, sometimes with field recordings, to invoke or reference a fictional place or state.
(Please note the sound clips are currently off-air)
A new solo live work City Song has been selected for performance at the forthcoming Sound Kitchen as part of Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in June 2015. See the Event page here for more info and links.
City Song explores a shifting dynamic of power, connectedness and fragmentation, and emerged during development time that was supported by a Creative Scotland Artists’ Bursary Award.
From the archive – Segami Dance Company was a collaborative project with New Zealand performer Hugh Major in the early 1990s in Edinburgh, Scotland. We joined forces after our paths crossed while working in the experimental theatre scene.
We created a handful of works including Bruised (solo), My Heart and My Legs, This Glorious Prison, and Shifting Sands, and performed in Edinburgh, London and a few venues in New Zealand’s north island. During our stay in New Zealand we also held workshops and collaborated with performing arts students to create their own contribution to our performance.
Our main influences were Butoh dance, other movement practices like Tai Chi, and indigenous cultures – we were interested in creating intense, contemplative, energetic work. I am currently going through archive materials to see what remains from that time.
I composed a soundscape for Teine Èiginn / Need Fire – an installation created by Dougie Strang for the Hidden Door Festival 2015.
The teine èiginn, or need fire, was lit during a ritual enacted in times of illness, amongst people and/or livestock. Records show that the ritual was still in use in remote communities in the Scottish Highlands up until the end of the nineteenth century.
Watch a short film version …
In addition to my own voice on the soundtrack, many thanks to Dougie Strang and Rona MacDonald for singing a song each.
Composer/sound designer with Martin O’Connor for A Govan of the Mind/Theology, performed at The Pearce Institute as part of The Arches Behaviour Festival in April 2014.
Nominated for a CATS Award 2013-14 – Best Music and Sound Category
The show is in two parts: Part 1, Theology is a Glaswegian-dialect version of the Catholic Order of Mass, with composition by Oliver Searle, performed with a local male choir brought together for the production; and Part 2 A Govan of the Mind is a non-narrative epic poem celebrating the beauty of our everyday language.
Design: Rachel O’Neill, lighting design: Kate Bonney, choir leader: Matt Regan. See here for full team and more info.
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
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.
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.
From the archive – Bruised was my first solo performance work, made in the early 1990s as part of a collaborative project Segami Dance Company with New Zealand performer Hugh Major. Read more at Segami. I am currently going through archive materials to see what remains from that time.
