Licht Drift

Licht Drift is a structured improvisation on sacred music and texts for the public domain.

Licht Drift

Introduction

Licht Drift is the eighth collaborative composition in the Drift Theory series. Drift Theory is a structured improvisation, each performance entirely unique, each performance influencing the next, exerting notions of drift as it may occur in creative, social and psychological development, both of the performers and the piece itself.

Licht Drift, inspired by Karlheinz Stockhausen’s epic operatic cycle, Licht, is based on four movements, each movement draws references from sacred music, sounds and text the world over.

All four movements, conceived independently by each performer, and in isolation from each other, must ensure that principles of drift influence the overall direction and outcomes of, for example, any cultural, political and astronomical contexts explored.

Drift is used to define a system having a distribution of events, objects, associations and intentions of individual velocities.

Composers notes

The theme(s) of the piece would be based on music as a communal, cultural process that seeks to transmit that which separates and that which brings us together…

In effect, I’m talking about creating an electro acoustic work that expresses separation, longing and unification – a contemporary work that draws on the sacred, that communicates to audiences through the relentless pace of commerce, its unyielding drain on finite resources and the homogenisation that results from its opportunistic outreach.

Process

  1. Each performer selects a sacred / indigenous music genre of choice.
  2. Where possible, use public domain or CC licensed samples available for Re-use (keep log of samples used and licence type) otherwise create unique samples.
  3. Develop theme / movement for up to 10 minutes improvisation – performers have 5 minutes to themselves, then up to 5 minutes to drift with the next performer and so on until the final movement seeing all four performers combined.
  4. Final work including any materials created for this final piece to be available online under an an agreed CC licence

Performance

Licht Drift was first performed at the Brisbane ccSalon – a satellite event to the first Building an Australian Commons conference, 24 June 2008.

Date: Tuesday, 24 June
Time: 5:30pm – 8:00pm
Location: State Library of Queensland, Stanley Place, Queensland Cultural Centre, South Bank

Performers

Andrew Garton, Julian Knowles,  Andrew Kettle, Lawrence English

Marketing

Terminal Quartet performs Licht Drift, structured improvisation on sacred music and texts for the public domain.

Andrew Garton’s Terminal Quartet debutes with a new Brisbane line-up to perform Licht Drift, a new work in the Drift Theory series, dedicated to the late Karlheinz Stockhausen and commissioned for the Building the Australian Commons Conference.

Licht Drift is a structured improvisation on sacred music and texts for the public domain and performed by Brisbane-based luminaries Andrew Kettle, Julian Knowles and Lawrence English.

Licht Drift is the eighth collaborative composition in the Drift Theory series. Drift Theory is a structured improvisation, each performance entirely unique, each performance influencing the next, exerting notions of drift as it may occur in creative, social and psychological development, both of the performers and the piece itself.

Of Licht Drift, Garton says “…we are creating an electro acoustic work that expresses separation, longing and unification – a contemporary work that draws on the sacred, that communicates to audiences through the relentless pace of commerce, its unyielding drain on finite resources and the homogenisation that results from its opportunistic outreach.”

Licht Drift will be performed by the Terminal Quartet at the Brisbane ccSalon, 24 June, State Library of Queensland, Stanley Place, Queensland Cultural Centre, South Bank.

More information:

Licht Drift is available under a BY-NC-SA 2.5 Australia Creative Commons Licence.

Links

Public domain and CC licensed materials may be found here:

Research