In an archipelago is a work for sextet and electronics, or any combination of its constituent parts, from solos, various possible duos and trios, and so on, all the way up to the full band, for a total of 127 possible combinations. The work was composed during the
COVID-19 pandemic, where an uncertain future led to the idea of affording the extracting of solos from the commission of a chamber piece-to-be. Each instrument’s part was composed one-by-one, first as a mockup assembled from recordings of my past pieces, among other sources. I listened to each of these parts in different combinations and fine-tuned them as I went in order to compose in such a way that they could exist on their own or in this variable company. I then transcribed the parts into a notated chamber score.
Each instrument has a phoneme attached to it, drawn from the title, and the title of each performance becomes an assemblage of its parts.
Antonio Benítez-Rojo’s 1985 essay The Repeating Island set out a way of thinking borne of the postcolonial conditions of the Caribbean that challenges the binary ontologies of Analytical and Continental Thinking. An Archipelagic Thinking is one of multiplicity and polyrhythm which conceptualizes through fragmentary interrelations rather than a system or a totality. In composing this piece, I was thinking about
connectivity through isolation, and the idea that repetition brings necessarily a difference and a deferral. The kind of densely modular repetition I experiment with, where every moment is densely recontextualizable, is one that I hope offers an opportunity to collapse
binary listening.

In an archipelago was commissioned by Standing Wave.

Listen to the work as an interactive app, creating your own mix of the different instruments in any combination!
iOS:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/standing-wave/id1601878153
Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ChromaMixedMedia.StandingWave

In an archipelago - Standing Wave (full ensemble)

James O’Callaghan is a composer and multimedia artist based in Berlin. His work has been described as “very personal… with its own colour anchored in the unpredictable,” (Goethe-Institut). It spans chamber, orchestral, live electronic and acousmatic idioms, audio installations, video-music, site-specific performances, electronic dance music, and interdisciplinary collaboration — most recently with choreographer Edouard Lock and artist Lois Brown. In 2016 an album of his acousmatic works, Espaces Tautologiques, was released by empreintes DIGITALes, and his extended collaboration with Ensemble Paramirabo resulted in a portrait album of his works in 2019, entitled Alone and unalone.
	His music has received nearly forty prizes and nominations, including the ISCM Young Composer Award (2017), the Salvatore Martirano Award (2016), and the SOCAN Foundation John Weinzweig Grand Prize (2014). Significant nominations include those for the Gaudeamus Award (2016), Prix Métamorphoses (2018), and two JUNO Awards (2014, 2020). In 2021 he received the Prix Opus for “Composer of the Year.” 
	Active as an arts organiser, he co-founded and co-directed the Montréal Contemporary Music Lab. Originally from British Columbia, he lived in Montréal for 11 years and since 2022 has been based out of Berlin.

I'll follow you back when SC lifts the follower limit (!)
Loving listening to everyone's music on here :-))))))))))

In an archipelago - Standing Wave (full ensemble)

James O'Callaghan