Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Juliana Hodkinson
The Coastline Piece III: West (2014)
- Edition Wilhelm Hansen Copenhagen (World)
- ob.bn.hn.perc.vn.va.vc + electronics
- 18 min
Programme Note
All coasts are landscapes not only of topographical ebb and flow, but also of special transition - places, potentially, of both population and influx, and of marginalization, where land (territory) meets the fluid sea. Seen from the point of view of those standing on the land, the coast in a periphery, its communities the last ones. Seen from the point of those arriving across the sea, it is a fixed point to be sighted, a goal to be reached.
The Coastline Piece I: the projector piece (2000) and The Coastline Piece II: indigo sea and sky (2002) were readings in sound of the coastlines of, respectively, Victoria (Australia) and Zealand (Denmark), treating a map of each territory as a graphic score providing the melody line for instrumental glissandi. The Coastline Piece I and II took account only of land formation. In my new piece for Esbjerg Ensemble, I plan to lend a sonic poetics to the social and political characters of outlying coastal communities, threatened or threatening in their geographical and social position, inspired by the Danish West Coast as a social periphery, the Norwegian West Coast as a strip of outstanding natural beauty, the Palestinian West Bank as barriered community, Portugal as historical sea-faring nation and West Africa with its post-colonial cultural diversity.
The Coastline Piece III is a musicalisation of the sounds - musical, natural and social - of various western coasts, presented as a musical collage. The choice of concrete sonic material (field recordings, radio archive/documentary material and media footage) reflects the theme of western coastal landscapes, as landscapes of transition - water and land. The idea of sonically portraiting communities and landscapes alongside instrumental music is to assemble a series of contrasting sounds, voices and sonic information that, through musical connections in pitch, rhythm, and timbre, may stimulate associations and mental connections between highly disparate worlds.
The Coastline Piece I: the projector piece (2000) and The Coastline Piece II: indigo sea and sky (2002) were readings in sound of the coastlines of, respectively, Victoria (Australia) and Zealand (Denmark), treating a map of each territory as a graphic score providing the melody line for instrumental glissandi. The Coastline Piece I and II took account only of land formation. In my new piece for Esbjerg Ensemble, I plan to lend a sonic poetics to the social and political characters of outlying coastal communities, threatened or threatening in their geographical and social position, inspired by the Danish West Coast as a social periphery, the Norwegian West Coast as a strip of outstanding natural beauty, the Palestinian West Bank as barriered community, Portugal as historical sea-faring nation and West Africa with its post-colonial cultural diversity.
The Coastline Piece III is a musicalisation of the sounds - musical, natural and social - of various western coasts, presented as a musical collage. The choice of concrete sonic material (field recordings, radio archive/documentary material and media footage) reflects the theme of western coastal landscapes, as landscapes of transition - water and land. The idea of sonically portraiting communities and landscapes alongside instrumental music is to assemble a series of contrasting sounds, voices and sonic information that, through musical connections in pitch, rhythm, and timbre, may stimulate associations and mental connections between highly disparate worlds.