An installation at the Aldeburgh Festival explores the relationship between architecture and music
A performance artwork by composer Freya Waley-Cohen and architectural designers Andrew Skulina and Finbarr O’Dempsey invites visitors to the Aldeburgh Festival to explore the relationship between architecture and music.
Music for six recorded violins – performed by Waley-Cohen’s sister, Tamsin – was composed in parallel with the design of six chambers, each housing one violin part. The chambers are adaptable, so that each audience member creates their own piece by the path they take through the space and the way they interact with the chambers.
The six chambers each have changeable levels of acoustic enclosure. They form and shared a central space, in which all of the violin parts are experienced as equally balanced and combined as a complete ensemble.
Listeners are able to explore the different textures and counterpoints that emerge within the music by moving through the chambers and adjusting the doors that make up the chamber linings. In navigating the performance, the listener is presented with the opportunity to experience the solo, duet or full ensemble in counterpoint, contingent upon their movement through the space.
Constructed from steel, plywood and polycarbonate, the chambers are designed to be erected and dismantled with ease in order to enable the installation to tour multiple venues.
‘Permutations’
Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh, Suffolk
10–16 June
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