As part of our Symphony for Perth project, we have invited young people from throughout the Greater Perth area to create original compositions using our Hyperscore software,
Hyperscore composition software
expressing some aspect of life – and sound – in Perth. Students from elementary through high school, and from the CBD to Narrogin, worked on their pieces from October through mid-December (brought together by Jemma Gurney, the amazing Education Coordinator at the Perth Festival). I was lucky enough to visit eight different schools when I was in Perth this fall, and got to hear all this music as it was developing. Great experience! Final compositions were sent to me a couple of weeks ago, and I have been listening to them ever since to decide how to incorporate as many of these brilliant, vivid musical visions as possible into the final Symphony.
Hyperscore workshop at Perth Modern School
Hyperscore composers at Churchlands Primary School
Rachael Dease, composer-collaborator with Perth International Arts Festival
Hard at work on Hyperscore pieces at Inglewood Primary School
Now you can help me think about this as well. The new HyperConstellation app will allow you to experiment with many fragments from the Perth Hyperscore compositions, and to give me suggestions about how they might fit together. Even better, the original computer versions of some of these Hyperscore pieces were transcribed for orchestra by Perth composer Rachael Dease, and recorded just last week by the West Australian Youth Orchestra, conducted by Chris Van Tuinen (who is also head of classical music programming at the Perth Festival).
WA Youth Orchestra, conducted by Chris Van Tuinen, recording selected Perth Hyperscore pieces
Back at the MIT Media Lab where I work, we took these recordings, selected our favorite parts, and fed them into Akito Van Troyer’s Constellation software which organized them into star-map-type patterns that you can explore.
So check out the brand new HyperConstellation app and listen to all these amazing musical motives. By connecting the dots, you can make your own compositions based on these Hyperscore pieces. Check out our recent video for a refresher on how to use Constellation, and make sure to upload your own versions of this material, edit and morph versions left by others, and post your comments on the website or send thoughts and ideas to me directly at perth@media.mit.edu.
I think you’ll be as impressed as I am at the ingenuity, sensitivity and – yes – sense of humor of Perth’s young people as demonstrated in these pieces, and I really look forward to hearing how you shape and mash-up this material yourselves. Don’t forget to come hear the final Symphony for Perth on March 1, 2014!!
Happy Holidays…..and Happy Hyperscore!!!!
Tod