Voyager for Orchestra and Four iPads
This piece of music has been inspired by the sights that these spacecraft have seen. The original hour long album recording was produced using synthesisers and live drums. Following a number of suggestions I completely rescored the work as a commission for the Beaumaris Arts Festival. This was shortened to a 30 minute work, largely by missing out some of the shorter pieces, for chamber orchestra and a virtual choir. Coming from an electronic background I looked at the idea of merging conventional classical instruments with electronic sounds.
It was at this point that I discovered the wonderful apps available for the iPhone and iPad and began to research this with the idea that the virtual choral parts could be performed by musicians using iPads instead of conventional classical instruments. After much research I have found the Alchemy app to be the one that will produce the sounds that I am looking for. Camel Audio, the makers of the Alchemy app, have helped me with the preparation of the sounds.
The work is a collaboration with Maurice Lock, a final year fine arts student at Coleg Menai, Bangor. Maurice has produced video to accompany the work (not easy when you consider what the subject matter is!) and this will be projected whilst the performance is in progress. This work is part of Maurice’s final year project.
The work had its world premiere on Wednesday 6 June 2012 at the Beaumaris Festival, performed by the Welsh Chamber Orchestra conducted by Anthony Hose.
You can read about this on the BBC News website by clicking here
You can hear my interview on BBC Radio Wales by clicking on the arrow below.
Since the work has been performed I have added a fifth movement based upon the shorter pieces, making this a 40 minute work now.