LISTEN
Video
Scriabin Preludes, Op. 33, Nos. 1 and 2
Jonathan Dove: The Suitcase Aria from "Flight"
Song of Hypatia (2021) | Sarah Anderson-Caulfield, soprano and Joseph Stacy, piano
Two Rachmaninoff Songs
Projects
"Hearing blurs v1" is a sonic representation of my experience growing up hearing impaired. Through distorted audio, spoken words, and improvisatory piano playing, this project conveys my truth in terms of the auditory experience as well as the emotional affect.
The first half of the piece is more externally focused - highlighting the difficulty to make out specific words through the muffled voices, the negativity perceived through the types of comments directed at me, and the challenges of discerning "F" vs "Th" vs "Sh" vs "S." The second half, however, is more internally focused, featuring audio from just the piano and my voice.
The construction of this soundscape involved a semester's worth of recording. I collected sounds I either felt represented everyday life in Vancouver or simply enjoyed hearing, and then I recorded dozens of brief snippets at the piano. I did not know how exactly they would all fit together, so it became a bit of a sonic puzzle I had created for myself. The goal for this piece was to use the music and combination of sounds in a way that encourages the listener to understand those sounds differently from start to finish.
This project commissioned by the Helen and Morris Belkin Art Gallery is meant to synthesize the many personal, historical, and temporal convictions that informed my interpretation of Olivia Whetung’s piece in the Soundings Exhibition titled, Strata. Tying in to the Strata affect, I decided to layer in recordings of the beads being poured as well as familiar sounds of the UBC Ladner Clock Tower hourly chime, understanding the tremendous influence those bells have on our perception of time. I also felt it essential to recognize the space this tower inhabits—its juxtaposition to the Indian Residential Schools History and Dialogue Centre, the nearby Reconciliation Pole, and of course, the university’s being situated on ancestral, unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) First Nation.