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Chorus [2013]

Chorus: a monumental installation of kinetic sound sculptures.

Towering above the audience a series of giant metal tripods support rotating arms. At the end of each arm loudspeakers emit precisely tuned musical pitches creating a pulsating, harmonic drone, singing out a hypnotic siren call to all those present. Red lights at the end of the arms create the effect of a whirling swarm of fireflies, or of planets in motion, like mesmerising orbits of colour. These intersecting lights trace rings above the heads of the audience, while the combined chorus of the spinning speakers creates a cohesive harmonious whole, ‘a sticky flux’, that is both uplifting and transfixing.

Chorus aims to bring a contemporary music and visual art spectacle to a very wide audience. Chorus was shortlisted for the 2014 BASCA British Composer of the Year award for sonic art.

See the Guardian’s Richard Williams’ blog post about Chorus here: https://thebluemoment.com/tag/ray-lee/

read more:

Performance/Composition:

Chorus consists of a composed sequence of tones pitched from the Aeolian mode in concert A440. Over the period of the twenty to thirty minute composition (depending on the context) the twenty-eight discrete parts go through a series of changes in pitch allowing the work to develop from a series of pulses to held drones in various combinations of intervals to a resolution around the tonic.

Touring and restaging:

2022   

  • Festival of Sound, Basingstoke
  • The Future Starts Here, Grimsby

2021   

  • Birmingham Weekender
  • Derby Feste
  • SPILL, Ipswich
  • Lumin Festival Crewe

2020

  • Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich and Docklands International Festival (Sept)
  • Appetite, Stoke on Trent (Oct)

2019

  • Brief Encounter, Preston UK

2018

  • Lakes Alive Festival, Kendal Castle, UK
  • Dimanche de la Canebière, Marseilles, France
  • Cheriton Lights, Folkestone, Kent, UK

2017

  • Hong Kong International Arts Festival
  • Georgetown Festival , Penang, Malaysia
  • Connected Cities and World Culture Forum, Seoul, South Korea
  • The Albany, Deptford (Circulate London Tour)
  • Stratford Circus, London (Circulate London Tour)
  • Millfield Theatre (Circulate London Tour)
  • Bell Square, London (Circulate London Tour)

2016

  • Canary Wharf Winter Lights Festival, London

  • ZAT, Montpelier France

  • Freedom Festival, Hull

  • Inside Out Festival, Dorset

  • New Scientist Live, Excel Arena, London

2015

  • White Night Melbourne, Australia

  • Sibiu International Theatre Festival, Romania

  •   Warsaw Autumn Festival of Contemporary Music

  •  In Time Festival, Coventry

2014 

  • Future City, Salford

  • Milton Keynes International Festival

  • WOMAD, Charlton Park. UK

  • National Theatre Outdoors

2013  

  •  Audiograft Oxford (scratch version)

  • Town Square Newbury for Corn Exchange Newbury (premiere)

  • Place de l’Opera, Lieux Public, Marseilles

  • Winchester Hat Fair  

  • Henley Festival

  • Bournemouth Arts Festival

  • Constellation Festival Reading

  • Festival of Light, Huddersfield

2012   Oxford Castle (scratch version)

Supported by:

Chorus was commissioned by Oxford Contemporary Music, and Newbury Corn Exchange in the UK. It was supported by the Sonic Arts Research Unit at Oxford Brookes University and the Arts Council of England.

Credits: 

Tripod fabrication: Charlie Camm, Scenetec Ltd.

Produced by Simon Chatterton

Technicians: Martin West, Andy Reader, Edward Collins, Graham Elstone, Christian Weaver, Tony James, Rob Lee, Stavroula Kounadea