Silk to steel

Details:
Silk to Steel is a multi-channel (5.1 and 7.1) composition. It was a Finalist at CIMESP 2005, Brazil, and received an Honourable
Mention at the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition 2005. There have been 17 further performances,
including VI CIMESP 2005, Goethe-Institut, São Paulo; Elektrophonie, Dijon, France; Sounds Electric’05, Aula Maxima,
Maynooth, Ireland; Fylkingen Institute, Stockholm; Concordia University, Montreal; VI International Festival of Electroacoustic
Music, Santiago, Chile; Logos Foundation, Gent, Belgium; Seoul International Computer Music Festival, Jayu Theatre, Seoul,
Korea.

Portfolio:
‘The influence of Futurist painting techniques in my music’, in the proceedings of the Digital Music Research Network
Conference, Leeds Metropolitan University, 7–8 July 2007.

Context:
Silk to Steel is a 50th birthday tribute to the composer Christopher Fox and utilises selected passages from Fox’s piano work
Prime Site as its source material. The structure of Silk to Steel is also derived from Fox’s work. The original seven movements
of Prime Site are concentrated into seven interlinking sections, each like Fox’s, focusing on rhythm, space, harmony, gestural
counterpoint and density. Rather than create a series of standard variations, the work continues the composer’s research into
the application of Futurist painting techniques in electronic music by refracting the source materials through the techniques of
divisionism and dynamism. The application of divisionism to sound materials also provides an original means of structuring
spatial elements as opposed to algorithmic or traditional sound diffusion techniques. In Silk to Steel 13 spatial planes for sonic
material were created that can interpenetrate one another, with the timbre, rhythm or trajectory of the sound changing as they
do so. These processes are further explained in the portfolio article.

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