Installations · Nottingham · 1973
Opus 6 · Rooms 53–5, Art History Department, Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham, UK — February 22, 1973
Created from a love/hate of mass media, a need to say something against a college background that was becoming too traditional and quiet, and to continue an idea about the separation of sounds.
Description and Structure
The concerto was very loosely composed. The first movement was approximately 20 minutes long; the second movement was minimally 40 minutes long — the concerto would theoretically have no end.
Sound sources were loosely described as classical, electronic, jazz, pop music, and voice tape loops, the exact choice being made at the time of performance. Equipment included 4 stereo tape recorders, 2 mono tape recorders and extensions, 1 video tape recorder and TV monitor, 2 slide projectors, and live TV cameras. The location of sound and visual producers, the location of the audience, and the movement of partitions between the rooms as the concerto progressed were all variable, as was the use of tape hiss and feedback.
The Sound
During the first movement a montage of sound sources — voice excerpts, classical, pop, jazz — was more or less submerged beneath a low moan: the sound of white noise oscillating.
During the second movement the sound sources overwhelmed the low moan, and slowly changed to natural sounds.