Paterson, Justin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7822-319X, Sholl, Robert, Visser, Andy and McCready, Anna (2024) Les ombres du Fântome: Improvisation, recording, production and the collective imagination in artistic research. In: Royal Musical Association 150 Conference, 11-13 September 2024, London, UK. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

This session presents and discusses aspects of a set of 14 organ improvisations (Robert Sholl) recorded in Coventry Cathedral recorded in July 2021 (subsequently co-created with Justin Paterson) that will be released on disc in April 2024. These improvisations form a meta-narrative of Gaston Leroux’s novel Le Phantôm de l’Opéra (1910) entitled Les ombres du Phantôm, implying shadows of ideas/themes/characters in the book. They were recorded by Justin Paterson and Mike Exarchos (aka ‘Stereo Mike’) using the organs of Coventry and Arundel Cathedrals in May and July 2021. They use an invented musical language, and explore the acoustics of those buildings, the gesture, and the materiality of the instruments in physical, spiritual, and sonic space that is enhanced and extended through recording technology and electronic augmentations.
The improvisations or shadows of the novella are not programmatic but evocative. The organ, played by the character in both the book and the 1925 silent film (staring Lon Chaney), is a medium for the transference of the majesty, the boiling rage and menace, the desire and obsession, the hubris, and the internal pain and external cruelty of the character. Christine is represented figuratively by the soprano on the recording (Anna McCready) – her desires, fears and non-fulfilment are connected to the Phantom. The saxophone and bass-clarinet (played by Andy Visser) register the underworld – alive and breathing, intersecting with the world of the organ and with the living.
The project was animated by various questions concerning the search for a new language, the properties and acoustic behaviours of the organ, and the engagement between the instrument and its ecclesiastical space. Intrinsic to the project was the relationship between this ecosystem and electronic augmentation that expands natural perspectives and possibilities, which creates a meta-modernist extension of the organ’s abilities to realise the mystical and gnostic. This post-production augmentation conjures the idea of the idea of ‘the double’, and the layering of the textures enables the possibilities of redoublings – and of future sonic outcomes from the materials.
In this presentation Robert Sholl and Justin Paterson will speak for around 15 minutes bookending presentations from Anna McCready and Andy Visser who will speak for around 10 minutes each. These presentations will detail what each participant imagined and what insights came from this practice in the space at this time, how they thought sound might be used, and what they understood from the end product for future practice. After the presentations a set of short examples will be employed in which all participants will make brief comments and the audience is invited to ask questions. The four presentations will be:

• Professor Robert Sholl (organ) will first introduce how these improvisations relate to and move beyond Leroux’s story, and he will detail a psychoanalytical perspective on the work (Hogle 2002; Žižek 2007 and 2016), and how this was imagined and crafted through the cathedral organ. He will discuss the musical language, the creation of the improvisations, the adaptation of spectralism, and the ways in which previous musical literature are absorbed into the resulting music.
• Dr Anna McCready (soprano) will explain her approach to the psychology of the situation and experience, and her use of extreme vocal techniques in this collaboration (Anhalt, 1984).
•Andy Visser (saxophones and bass clarinet) will discuss his choice of timbres, textures and extended performance techniques used in the improvisations.
• Finally, Professor Justin Paterson will describe how the production aesthetic was conceived and then realised by digital-audio-manipulation tools and advanced techniques incorporating extended Gouldian acoustic orchestration and computer automation, added convolution reverberation, time-stretching, and creative editing.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Lecture)
Subjects:	Music
Related URLs:	https://rma150.wordpress.com/
Depositing User:	Justin Paterson
Date Deposited:	10 Oct 2024 10:45
Last Modified:	10 Oct 2024 10:45
URI:	https://repository.uwl.ac.uk/id/eprint/12767

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