Riverrun
THE AWARD
Riverrun was awarded the Magisterium at the International Competition of Electroacoustic Music in Bourges, France, in 1991 - a category open only to electroacoustic composers of 20 or more years experience.
THE WORK
Commissioned by the Music Section of the Biennale di Venezia with the financial assistance of the Canada Council, Riverrun creates a sound environment in which stasis and flux, solidity and movement co-exist in a dynamic balance.
The composers had the following to say about his work:
“The corresponding metaphor is that of a river, always moving yet seemingly permanent. From the smallest rivulet to the fullest force of its mass, a river is formed from a collection of countless droplets and sources. So too with the sound in this composition which bases itself on the smallest possible 'unit' of sound in order to create larger textures and masses. The title is the first word in James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake.
Riverrun is entirely realized with the method of sound production known
as granular synthesis. With this method small units or 'grains' of sound are
produced, usually with very high densities (100-2000 grains/sec), with each
grain having a separately defined frequency and duration. When the grains all
have similar parameters, the result is a pitched and amplitude modulated sound,
but when random variation is allowed in a parameter, a broad-band noise component
is introduced."
