“… the physicality of the listening experience becomes all the more emphasised I think through working spatially. As composers we always think of course spatially, we don’t just hear this dry thing in our head, the music does not live until it is moving and it is being carried through space and the physicality of the listening experience is much more acute when you are aware of density of how full the space is with different kinds of musical levels going on, with all surfaces going on. But also the nearness to the performing music source or the distance to that. And so constantly you are aware that the music is closer and it is far away. And you are aware that the music is being in the foreground, in the background, in the middle .. and that you can create an extraordinary flexibility between these different layers and it is working with that. Working that you are aware that the space can be compressed or it can be opened up. And it is like the space becomes.. like you are inside the ensemble itself. The space begins to breath and one becomes aware that performance situation is a living breathing organism.”
Rebecca Sounders
Just one bit from throughout extraordinary interview (in conversation with Aaron Cassidy), offering insights in Rebecca Saunders’ inspirations, working methods, search for/in sound, continuously developing her sound, relationship with musicians and instruments, finding obsessions and making something beautiful out of them…