sound-mattering study: elisabeth in the hague
Collaboration with Elisabeth Lusche
Developed during ‘Listening as compositional practice’ workshop led by composers George Lewis and Isabel Mundry
Premiered at Darmstadt Summer Course 2021
6 minute video
This piece is an exploration of the process of ‘drifting’ with sound or sound-mattering: a way of relational sounding that materialises whatever is present. For this piece, trumpet player and performer Elisabeth Lusche captured her intimate trumpet sounding experience with a point-of-view video recorded on a personal phone. We overlayed this video with Elisabeth’s own verbal recollections, some poetic hints at her lived experience. Altogether it’s an intimate collage of relaxed domestic presence, performed with an unexpected instrument: trumpet.
During Darmstadt I was interested in understanding where I could draw the lines in terms of subjectivity of my vocal practice. What were the things I did that could be shared with a performer and what were the things that were specific to me and didn’t need to be shared? Was the performer supposed to embody my sensorium but bring their instrument with them and play from within or were they supposed to get in touch with their own sensorium? Working with Elisabeth helped me understand how to communicate a way into the particular type of presence I was practising without being too prescriptive and welcoming the unexpected. Elisabeth did a stellar job attuning to her immediate surroundings and using the trumpet efortlessly to sound out that experience.