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AMAZING SOUNDS No.1 / November 02, 1996
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CONTENTS:

SARAH HOPKINS. Sarah Hopkins is a composer and performer specialized in "sound
art" since 1976.

REVIEWS:
CHAS SMITH: "AN HOUR OUT OF DESERT CENTER" Cold Blue Music
GERARD ROMA: "1=0" Satelite K / Gracia Territori Sonor / Exotica Club
KRAKATOA: "WE ARE THE ROWBOATS" Cuneiform Records
MICHAEL BYRON: "AWAKENING AT THE INN OF THE BIRDS" Cold Blue Music
JEAN ROUTHIER: "ENDURANCE" Aurore Nocturne
VARIOUS: "CACHE 2002" Canadian Electroacoustic Community
VARIOUS: "STRCH PRST SKRZ KRK" kRkRkRk Recordings

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SARAH HOPKINS

Sarah Hopkins is a composer and performer specialized in "sound art" since 1976.

Sarah Hopkins was born in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, in 1958. Second daughter of
well known conductor John Hopkins, she receives her basic musical education at
the High School of the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music in Sydney, where
her family had moved in 1964.

After obtaining a Diploma of Arts in Music at the Victorian College of the Arts,
where she studies between 1975 and 1979, she specializes in the soloist cello,
New Music and experimental composition.

Tutored by professor and composer Richard Hames, she gets in touch with the
music of the 1950s, and studies the music of John Cage, Steve Reich, Terry
Riley, Karlheinz Stockhausen, James Fulkerson, Luciano Berio, Olivier Messiaen,
Iannis Xenakis and others. Also, she privately learns acrylic and watercolor
painting, which allows her to combine her artistic and musical drives. All this
will be reflected in her visual and graphic scores, influenced by her studies of
diverse musical notations. This means that in her graphic scores different signs
and symbols refer to different ways of sound performance, with additional
explanations if needed, section by section, as seen for instance in her work
"Cello Timbre" (1976).

In her picto-graphic scores abstract visual images (a picture, a photo or a
drawing) are included, with or without any clues on their interpretation.

In her text scores, the artist may include a text which inspires the music to be
performed in response to this text, or a re-interpretation of this same text in
musical form, and/or detailed explanations to perform the work in question. And
in her number scores, each performer may for instance have their cards with
lists of numerals indicating the time between notes, therefore producing sounds
distributed into changeable spatial patterns.

The artist also makes use of proportional or space-time notation, which allows
for accuracy in pitch together with freedom of rhythm.

In her compositions Sarah explores a wide range of forms and sounds, while at
the same time perfecting her cello technique. Likewise, Hopkins develops new
musical notation models, and creates multitrack cello works, performance pieces
and a variety of free improvisations.

This versatility Sarah is so keen on is no doubt reflected in her
interdisciplinary works and various collaborations. The composer works with
different visual artists and choreographers, like for instance Jacek Grzelecki,
with whom she develops her multimedia performance "Enactment" (1981), a piece
where she combines video, sound and tape collage, and live musical performance.

Sarah has been in several occasions resident artist in different Australian
schools, colleges and community artistic institutions, which often serves her as
inspiration to create new works and performances. Furthermore, her works have
been recorded for different radio stations, and the artist has toured Australia,
America and Europe in several occasions.

In 1976 Hopkins becomes a member of the New Music Ensemble of the VCA, The
Victorian Time Machine, founded by Richard Hames this same year. It is then when
she begins to perform a great deal of innovative scores and to compose her own
works and cello improvisations.

In 1977 Hopkins performs solo the work "Projections" by James Fulkerson,
originally for chamber orchestra. The artist re-creates this work by using these
innovative notations and multitrack applications, together with a color
spectrum/chromatic scale system, all this combined with 11 slides to provide the
visual part of the performance, which marks her beginnings as a New Music
composer.

Hopkins completes two years of postgraduate studies at VCA, specializing in the
application of electronic sounds to the cello. Still collaborating with the
Victorian Time Machine, she tours her country with an extensive New Music
program, collaborates with several film makers, dancers, painters and
performance artists, and is resident artist at various institutions.

In 1980-81 Hopkins receives an International Fellowship from the Music Board of
the Australia Council, which allows her to continue touring abroad, visiting
over 20 European countries. She works with different improvisers, such as Maggi
Nicols, Derek Bailey and Mario Sanco, and several of her works are recorded for
the Dutch radio in 1980. Also, she participates in different New Music events
such as the Fete Musicale de La Sainte-Baum in 1980, an academic studio in
Darmstadt and an improvisation festival sponsored by the Institute of
Contemporary Art from London in 1981. It is in this city where the artist joins
for a time the theatre feminist collective "Cunning Stunts", participating in
over fifty performances in Europe. Her most remarkable work in this sense,
called "The Opera", played by nine women from different backgrounds (from circus
to the visual arts, gymnastics, dance and music), explores new ways to define
and present the image of womanhood.

In 1980 she travels to Bremen to participate in the Pro Musica Nova Festival,
and it is there where she contacts Mongolian chant and harmonic singing, based
on the techniques of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, which allow to sing in two voices
at the same time, creating ethereal melodies in a very high register, an effect
Hopkins reproduces with her cello, by means of the technique she calls "harmonic
bowing".

In 1981 she goes back to Australia, and since then she develops new forms of
musical expression. Sarah Hopkins expands her musical skills taking her
creativity to the production of new, innovative sound source, as seen in her
inventing what she christens as "whirly instruments" and "sound kites" (kites
that create sounds as they fly), as well as the installation of large scale
musical environments. One of her projects, "Whirliworks", initiated in 1982,
illustrates the use of these "whirly instruments", built with corrugated hoses
of different lengths and diameters, tuned and played into a variety of
percussive and melodic styles, which produce sound as they are whirled through
the air, very much like certain aboriginal instruments. One of the works in
which the artist collaborates with this technique is "Wind Music For Earth And
Sky", together with choreographer Beth Shelton.

In late 1981, Hopkins visits Darwin as Musician in Residence at the Brown's Mart
Community Arts Centre, and tours the country for three months for the NT Arts
Council. There she meets her future husband, whom she marries in 1982.

Two years later she founds the Darwin Whirliworks Ensemble, a group of six
musicians from different backgrounds with whom she composes "Interweave".

Hopkins collaborates in yet another three projects with dancer and choreographer
Beth Shelton together with composers Ros Bandt and Elwyn Dennis, at the
Victorian College of the Arts. Another community project, "Eclipse" (1986), for
the "handbell choir" of the Nightcliff High School, is inspired by a spectacular
mooon eclipse.

Hopkins has collaborated as a cello performer with several Autralian musicians
and New Music composers, among these Ros Bandt, Jo Truman, Leigh Hobba, Colin
Offord and Peter Carolan. She has released several pieces under the label
Soundworks between 1981 and 1986.

By mid 1981 she develops an interest in structured acoustic improvisations,
which permits her to express herself with a lively spontaneity. Since then, she
chooses to compose under this viewpoint, centering her work in essentials and
not using more or less notes than the necessary ones.

In 1980 and 1981 she collaborates with the London Musicians Collective (LMC),
who organize several improvisation sessions and concerts. Among her cello works
mention must be made of "Cello Chi" (1986), premiered at the 1986 Sydney
Biennale, and recorded by the ABC. This piece was conceived as a "journey
through sound", inspired in the aboriginal rhythms of her lands, which includes
the use of the didgeridoo, harmonic singing and all the innovative techniques
that the artist has been developing throughout her career.

In 1984 she initiates her series of "sound kites" in collaboration with the kite
specialist Sharon Pacey. Both artists design sound generating kites as they fly.
Their best creation is the "singing stunter", a dual-control kite made from sail
cloth and fibreglass, whose spine supports an attached "whirly instrument" to
produce song and weave melodies as it floats in the air. This gives rise to
three projects, two of them are performed at the NT (in 1984 and 1985), and the
third one at the Orange Arts Festival in 1985. Another piece, "Bellworks"
(1986), includes the use of cathedral bells and handbells.

In one of her works, Hopkins collaborates with composer Alan Lamb and
choreographers Beth Shelton and Trevor Patrick for an interdisciplinary large
scale project, "Sky Song", where she incorporates movement, cello, voice and
music produced by means of resonating wires and "whirly instruments".

(By Montse Andreu)

====================

REVIEWS:

CHAS SMITH:
"AN HOUR OUT OF DESERT CENTER"
Cold Blue Music
As the title of this album suggests, Chas Smith transmits in the four tracks in
this CD, strong feelings of isolation and immensity, at times shaping dense
cobwebs of hybrid sounds ranging from the metallic to the crystaline, and at
other times working with the echoes of paused notes. The majesty of the desert,
its impressive vastness, yet its overwhelming menace as well, are perceived in
the music.
EDGAR KOGLER

GERARD ROMA:
"1=0"
Satelite K / Gracia Territori Sonor / Exotica Club
Music seemingly inspired in the mysteries of the Digital Era. The themes range
around the most industrial side of Techno, with a certain minimalist approach in
some passages. Gerard Roma shows a special ability to take recognisable noises,
which are clear symbols of the history of Chip, and organise them in such a way
that they serve as rhythms or accompaniments to the disquieting melodies, all
that without falling into aimless experimentation.
ALEJANDRO HINOJOSA

KRAKATOA:
"WE ARE THE ROWBOATS"
Cuneiform Records
As can be appreciated when listening to this album, Krakatoa are a band with
several remarkable identity traits. Perhaps what defines them best is the fusion
they make between elements from Rock and Classical Music. They are very careful
with their melodies and make very complete arrangements and orchestrations. In
their compositions, touches of Jazz, Folk and other genres can likewise be
perceived. They have been compared, in some aspects of their style, with such
bands and artists as for instance King Crimson, Penguin Café Orchestra, John
Zorn, Frank Zappa and Birdsongs of the Mesozoic.
ALEJANDRO HINOJOSA

http://www.cuneiform.com/

MICHAEL BYRON:
"AWAKENING AT THE INN OF THE BIRDS"
Cold Blue Music
By combining minimalism with New Music and Chamber Music, Michael Byron
experiments with a variety of concepts in this album. Piano and violins sustain
the greatest performing weight, although in some parts the synthesizer
intervenes so as to provide the music with a more ethereal texture.
VALERIANO GUIOL

JEAN ROUTHIER:
"ENDURANCE"
Aurore Nocturne
In this album of sound experimentation, Jean Routhier follows the approaches of
Concrete Music, and creates all sorts of acoustic collages with voices and other
sounds, preferably from an urban environment, at times manipulating them, and
keeping them intact at other times. He also makes use of architectures typical
of Electroacoustic Music, and even of Ambient, so as to develop some passages.
DOMINIQUE CHEVANT

VARIOUS:
"CACHE 2002"
Canadian Electroacoustic Community
In this compilation of compositions of Electroacoustic Music, organized by the
Canadian Electroacoustic Community, we find different sound proposals, ranging
from Concrete Music to architectrues near to the darkest side of Ambient, all of
them oriented towards experimentation. This is the contents of the CD: Dominique
R. Bassal: "Rites d'oiseaux pensants", Carey Dodge: "Sound for Emporter du
Naufrage", Brian Garbet: "Ritual", Terence Huang: "Birth of Eternity", Adis
Husejnagic: "Sand", Martin Messier: "Tiaré", Dan Nyborg / Andrew Watson: "198.3
Ashcroft Subdivision", David Paquette: "Un million d'instants - Le matin",
Jean-Michel Robert: "Les enfants d'Éole", Andrew Wedman: "Breath", Brett
Ziegler: "Graveyard Shift"
DOMINIQUE CHEVANT

VARIOUS:
"STRCH PRST SKRZ KRK"
kRkRkRk Recordings
A sampler by underground artists from the city of Christchurch, in New Zealand,
where the label kRkRkRk Recordings has its headquarters. The themes, openly
experimental, flow as a general rule between noise and alternative Pop-Rock. The
artists participating here are: Brainlego, MiG-21, Wormwood, Antibody, Nick
Hodgson, Lahar, Strap Ons, NoTV, KYN, Megan Gallacher, Drawing Room, Placenta
Cookbook, Full Force Loving Machine, Sirlordme, Early Bioneers, Peter Wright, Ed
Wilson, and Laudanum.
ALEJANDRO HINOJOSA

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