Nocturne No. 1

This night music is indebted to a radio broadcast – Closedown – heard each morning just before 1am on BBC Radio 4 in the UK. It is a series of rather unusual announcements framed by musical fragments which have a firm place in the British cultural landscape and which have been referred to as a “secular prayer” (Katy Guest). I find it deeply and pleasurably sedative. For a time, dozing through its elements was a nightly ritual I enjoyed and that helped me deal with mild insomnia.
The piece is an exploration of intertextuality - radio broadcasts and pre-existing music is woven into the fabric of the piece to create a multi-layered, referential experience. That the piece was written in and has been performed most in the US has allowed me to explore how audiences react differently depending on their cultural hinterland.
The software that performs the electronic element of the piece was designed to be user-friendly in a manner bespoke for performers. The method of interaction between tape and live instrument allows the performer to retain control of crucial pacing parameters and simply shape the computer part in real time so that the performer can maintain expressive performance whilst still utilising the robustness of audio files.

This piece includes extracts of the shipping forecast including the music Sailing By as broadcast on BBC radio. They have been contacted to discuss rights.