Today I’ve been in the studio at Leeds Met mixing and editing the ambisonic recordings of Sounding the Deep, which were made at the premiere by Dr. Robert Mackay of Hull University. Sounding the Deep was a very ambitious project put together by Nigel Morgan and Hull Philharmonic Orchestra. As part of my work with Tonality Systems Press over the last eight years I’ve worked closely with Nigel on a number of projects as a copyist, editor, sound designer, recordist and technologist. I’ve been working behind the scenes on Sounding the Deep in various capacities: negotiating tight deadlines for the scores and parts, preparing educational resources (auditory, notated and written) and even writing the odd Pure Data patch and Processing application… it was also a great pleasure to work on a libretto, since writing (particularly poetry) is a growing concern at present.

So, now we’re finally wrapping things up in time for the final project evaluation. I’ve spent much of the time not tweaking levels and waiting for waveforms to render getting a feel for the musical material available: two complete performances of the central (40 minute) work for bass voice and orchestra, and two complete recordings of the Shoals cycle for student ensembles.

There’ll be more reflections on this project later, post-evaluation. Meanwhile, here’s a rough montage of the main orchestral work.