Haydn Space Opera

Development progression

  1. Interest in incomprehensibility sparked by hearing a piece by Georges Aperghis
  2. Followed up with an exploration of his work, thinking about making a vocal piece for myself
  3. Considering the use of text from the margins of the notebook pages (was working with this for TURN)
  4. Thinking about how to involve Bastard Assignments (what instruments would they play)
  5. Decision to experiment with using the notebooks (specifically the Britten and Haydn volumes) as graphic scores in a Bastard Assignments workshop session
  6. After an extremely successful (recorded) workshop, experimented with making scores to distil the best bits of the graphic score work to be a piece for in-person performance at Kettle’s Yard (not a success)
  7. After the pandemic hit, tested out transferring ideas to Zoom as part of the Bastard Assignments Lockdown Jams (esp. the incomprehensibility aspect/mumbling about work in progress)
  8. Workshop on Mozilla Hubs
  9. Set about creating the piece in Hubs, using the recordings from the original graphic score workshop. This required me to not only learn Hubs but also Blender. Test sessions with Bastard Assignments and Open Scores Lab
  10. Launched at SparkFest, 10-23 May 2021
  11. Fixes needed in response to Hubs upgrades (broke relative sound levels in the piece and corrected a bug), creation of video walkthroughs for accessibility and archiving purposes
  12. Programmed at Electric Medway, 21-30 August 2021

Abbreviation: HSO
Collaborators and contributors: Bastard Assignments (initials E, T and J), Open Scores Lab (abbreviation OSL, further assistance with testing from HM)

In development (this content therefore is incomplete). First ‘performance’ at SparkFest May 10-23 2021.