strange birds 

strange birds (10′) is an acousmatic piece commissioned by The Rainy Days Festival in 2020. It was premiered in the Espace Découverte at the Luxembourg Philharmonie on 14th November 2021. 

The materials were created from my own flute and vocal improvisations, together with field recordings made and collected over several years. The imaginative space is a hybrid between bird, human and electronic, and is partly inspired by Jeff VanderMeer’s The Strange Bird (cited with permission of the author). I was particularly moved by the conversation towards the end of the story between two bird-like creatures who are part human, part bird, and part software. Sections of the music attempt to imagine what such a conversation might sound like, with its intimate cross-breedings of bird and electronic, while the musical space shifts between interior and exterior landscapes. 

Below is an excerpt: