Going / Places (2015) 60:00                                                                                                                      Jonty Harrison

– dedicated to Ali, Clare and Emma

My habit of always carrying sound recording equipment started in the early 1990s when I became interested in capturing everyday sonic events that somehow indicated their geographical location. One day, when I was recording a journey on the London Underground, a lost overseas visitor asked me directions – that incident gave me the idea for a piece based on the broad theme of travel, and the sense of disorientation, even alienation, it can engender.

I have amassed quite a sound library over the past 25 years, but only started to investigate these materials methodically in 2014, with three related works: Hidden Vistas (a 20-channel gallery piece, premiered at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham); Espaces cachés (a 30-channel concert work, commissioned by the Maison des arts sonores, Montpellier and premiered at the Klang! Electroacoustique Festival in Montpellier); and Secret Horizons (a 14-channel installation, composed for the RBSA Gallery, Birmingham as part of the Birmingham Sculpture Trail). My approach in these works was to present the material, but in a way that, given the geographical disparity of some of the concurrently sounding materials, would be impossible in ‘real life’ – we cannot, physically, be in two places at once, but it is entirely possible in the aural domain, especially if recognition and personal memory are evoked and involved. Large loudspeaker arrays, often in different rooms or parts of a space, aided the illusion I was trying to create.

I felt, however, that I wanted to subject this material to a more ‘in-depth’ acousmatic investigation, so was delighted when Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, one of my former PhD students at Birmingham and now Professor of Music at Huddersfield, asked me to compose 60-minute multi-channel work when I retired – it was the perfect opportunity. A Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship enabled me to make field recording trips to Australia and Iceland, and supported the development of multi-channel signal processing software; the National Lottery, via an Arts Council England Grants for the Arts award, supported the period of composition.

Going / Places is not so much a piece as an ongoing project – what you will hear today is the story so far. I intend to carry on travelling, recording new materials that will undoubtedly demand and deserve to participate in future versions.

I owe huge thanks to a large number of people and organisations for their contributions to this work and their assistance in its creation:

• the Leverhulme Foundation for a 12-month Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship;
• the National Lottery via Arts Council England for a Grants for the Arts award;
• Pierre Alexandre Tremblay for asking me to compose on this scale;
• James Carpenter and Chris Tarren for their programming expertise in developing signal processing tools for the work; these have been incorporated into BEASTtools, a suite of Max/MSP patches, available for free download at:

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/facilities/ea-studios/research/beasttools.aspx;

• Alex Harker and Huddersfield postgraduates for setting up the HISS system for me to hear before setting about the piece in earnest;
• Graham McKenzie (Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival) and CeReNeM/Electric Spring (University of Huddersfield) for hosting and promoting the work;
• Lisa Whistlecroft and Steve Benner for sharing their knowledge of places to record interesting sounds in Iceland and for accompanying us on the trip;
• David Hirst for extensive advice and information about recording locations in Australia and for the use of his house at the eastern end of the Great Ocean Road;
• Elainie Lillios for hosting me in the studios at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, as a recipient of the KEAR (Klingler Electro-Acoustic Residency), and her husband, Michael Thompson
• the unknown overseas visitor to London who asked me for directions in the Underground nearly 25 years ago – I was recording at the time and that interruption triggered the idea of this piece;
• finally – as ever – thanks to Ali for keeping me more or less sane during the composition of the work, and for helping me carry all the recording gear to far-flung corners of the world; I couldn’t have done it without her.