Unheard Voices

A multi-channel sound performance, with live vocalist, Brona Martin in response to the German Expressionist art collection at New Walk Museum, commissioned by Hear Th↓s Space in 2015.

Hear Th↓s Space are a collection of composers and curators who put on site-sensitive events. This project, ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ (Total work of art) included workshops to gather sound recordings from the museums gallery and basement, including capturing the sounds of air vents, enhancing inaudible sounds, giving everyday objects and surfaces a ‘voice’ by tapping and rubbing and archival material from the exhibition.

I took inspiration from German Expressionist films and composers, particularly the music of composer Arnold Schoenberg, who avoided traditional forms of beauty, using rapidly changing textures, dynamics and moods. I collaborated with vocalist, Brona Martin who used her voice to mimic the pitch and tone of the recorded sounds, which had been abstracted by stretching, reversing, repeating and overlapping to create a haunting quality with changing moods and high contrasting volumes and crescendos.