Extrémités lointaines
8-channel electroacoustic composition / commissioned by the French Culture Ministry and Ina-GRM / Studio : GRM Paris /
1998 / duration: 16:24 min / dedicated to Francis Dhomont /
first performance in the original 8-channel version on 23 February 1998 during the Cycle Acousmatique Son-Mu of GRM /
Finalist in the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition (France, 1998) and Distinction during the Prix Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria, 1998)
Extrémités lointaines uses recordings I made during a four-week concert tour in Asia in the summer of 1997. I recorded city sounds, the music of churches and temples, and the songs of children in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. These unexpectedly rich sound worlds, quite different from ours, remain inscrutable even if they open doors for us. For many years, I have been integrating vocal and instrumental sounds into my electroacoustic compositions with the esthetic concern to maintain the cultural context of the source.
Even though in extrémités lointaines I use a wide variety of sounds resulting from travels through four countries, these connections remain very strong. The piece is structured in 15 sections describing different locations. The intensity of the impressions I experienced during the trip has resulted in a dense compositional structure.
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