Gordon Monro - "New Stars"

"Starfish"

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"Horse Eats Consciousness "

"New Stars"

For vibraphone and glove-controlled synthesiser, duration 10 mins (1994)

Program note

New Stars is an improvisatory piece for conventional instrument (in this instance vibraphone) and glove-controlled synthesiser; much of the piece was worked out as a collaboration between the two performers. The inspiration for the piece came partly from modern accounts of star formation and partly from mythology and B-grade science fiction. (The glove used is a Mattel PowerGlove, which is such a fascist-looking lump of plastic that the references to B-grade science fiction were unavoidable).

There are three sound sources in the piece: a "cosmic background", which slowly changes without reference to the rest of the piece (and is in a different tuning - nine notes to the octave), the vibraphone, and the glove-controlled synthesiser, which functions essentially as a monophonic instrument.

The vibraphone player and co-composer is Alice Cohen. a composer (classical and jazz) and a performer in jazz and free improvisation traditions.

Performances, etc

"Synaesthetica" Conference, Australian Centre for the Arts and Technology (subsequently renamed Centre for New Media Arts), Australian National University, Canberra, 2 July 1994;
Electro-acoustic Concert organised by the Australasian Computer Music Association and the Contemporary Performers' and Composers' Fellowship, Old Darlington School, University of Sydney, 30 July 1994;
watt concert, Art Gallery of NSW, 29 October 1994 — during this performance there were additionally projections of abstract ray-traced images created by David Monro;
Australian Computer Music Association concert, Elm Street Hall, North Melbourne, 20 November 1994;
National radio broadcast (Australian Broadcasting Corporation FM network), 22 November 1995.

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