Brompton & Braeswood
2023
immersive fixed media (6th-order ambisonics)
Commissioned by New Music on the Bayou
immersive fixed media (6th-order ambisonics)
Commissioned by New Music on the Bayou
Please note: This recording is in a binaural stereo format, which simulates surround sound. For the best experience, please listen using headphones.
Brompton & Braeswood is an acousmatic piece inspired by my personal experience living through Hurricane Harvey. The title derives from the street intersection where my wife and I were living at the time, along Brays Bayou in Houston. Central to my piece is a library of field recordings I captured at that intersection and along the bayou in the days immediately prior to Harvey making landfall. Some of these recordings were made with a Soundfield SPS-200 microphone; others were made with a matched pair of DPA miniature omni microphones clipped to the brim of a baseball cap, which allowed me to capture a quasi-binaural stereo image.
In composing Brompton & Braeswood, I sought to present a series of vignettes of contrasting mood and representation. The piece’s opening presents the imagery and emotion of a violent storm. The storm is initially heard directly, then — after a door slams shut — from the perspective of someone taking shelter. The remainder of the piece depicts the gentle but unrelenting, oppressive rainfall that accompanied the hurricane, and there is a marked shift in the music which draws the listener inward toward a place of introspection. At the time Harvey struck Houston, I had just arrived home from the hospital to recover from a major surgery, following a long period of illness. Brompton & Braeswood draws on my contemporaneous thoughts and feelings: those of intense worry and gloom, but also of optimism that my health would improve.
Aside from field recordings, other sound materials include noisy tones synthesized in Max/MSP, pitched wood, and piano and guitar samples. Sound was spatialized using 5th-order ambisonic encoding. The piece explores electroacoustic techniques of amplitude envelope following, filtering, and synthesis using bandpass-filtered white noise.
Brompton & Braeswood was commissioned by New Music on the Bayou.
Brompton & Braeswood is an acousmatic piece inspired by my personal experience living through Hurricane Harvey. The title derives from the street intersection where my wife and I were living at the time, along Brays Bayou in Houston. Central to my piece is a library of field recordings I captured at that intersection and along the bayou in the days immediately prior to Harvey making landfall. Some of these recordings were made with a Soundfield SPS-200 microphone; others were made with a matched pair of DPA miniature omni microphones clipped to the brim of a baseball cap, which allowed me to capture a quasi-binaural stereo image.
In composing Brompton & Braeswood, I sought to present a series of vignettes of contrasting mood and representation. The piece’s opening presents the imagery and emotion of a violent storm. The storm is initially heard directly, then — after a door slams shut — from the perspective of someone taking shelter. The remainder of the piece depicts the gentle but unrelenting, oppressive rainfall that accompanied the hurricane, and there is a marked shift in the music which draws the listener inward toward a place of introspection. At the time Harvey struck Houston, I had just arrived home from the hospital to recover from a major surgery, following a long period of illness. Brompton & Braeswood draws on my contemporaneous thoughts and feelings: those of intense worry and gloom, but also of optimism that my health would improve.
Aside from field recordings, other sound materials include noisy tones synthesized in Max/MSP, pitched wood, and piano and guitar samples. Sound was spatialized using 5th-order ambisonic encoding. The piece explores electroacoustic techniques of amplitude envelope following, filtering, and synthesis using bandpass-filtered white noise.
Brompton & Braeswood was commissioned by New Music on the Bayou.
Performances
- Sonorities Festival Belfast. April 9–13, 2024
- Multimedia Arts Technology Concert, Western Michigan University. November 21, 2023
- Australasian Computer Music Conference, Sydney. October 9, 2023
- International Music Day, Estonian Academy of Music and Theater, Tallinn. October 1, 2023
- Electronic Music Concert Series, Ball State University. September 25, 2023
- “Atemporánea” International Festival of Contemporary Music. Buenas Aires, Argentina. September 20, 2023
- PAYSAGES | COMPOSÉS Festival. Grenoble, France. September 10, 2023
- New Music on the Bayou Festival. University of Louisiana Monroe. June 3, 2023
- University of Minnesota Department of Dance
- Excerpts choreographed by Taja Will for a new dance piece, The River is Broken, which was commissioned by the University of Minnesota Department of Dance and performed December 2–4, 2022, at the Barbara Barker Center for Dance in Minneapolis.