Karen Power
wondrous worlds within/without: interspecies gossip (2024)

Karen Power is a Cork County–based composer, performer, and educator. Her compositional approach engages with the natural world through sound. The works challenge the distinction between what we consider ‘music’ and all other sonic existence.

Listening is at the core of Power’s methodology. Her field recordings, made in remote locations around the globe, unearth and reposition the environment’s sonic qualities. Through listening, Power practices an expanded sense of wonderment and appreciation for nature.

Power interrogates and seeks to transform our uneven, often extractive relationship with the natural world, and thereby advance a more equitable human-nature association. Her sound databank might be considered a form of environmental activism, preserving as it does a natural world ever more deeply impacted by climate change.

Power presents her compositions as staged orchestral and/or ensemble pieces, solo instrumental pieces, installations, and happenings, among other arrangements. Her process often involves collaboration with other artists, including filmmakers and dancers, putting sound in dialogue with moving images or bodies in movement.

wondrous worlds within/without: interspecies gossip is a composition presented in the form of an installation. It features a ‘collage’ of sounds Power has collected during her travels over the past decade to the Arctic, the Amazon, the Namib Desert, the Australian Outback, New Zealand, and Antarctica – scenarios as much removed from human existence or interference as possible. The composition relates seemingly disparate sonic elements, for example the shimmering of Australian cicadas and the birdcall of an Irish wren. It also leans away from direct physical associations of sound in favour of new, more wide-ranging connections. The work ebbs and flows, as layered sonic elements interact via eight speaker channels distributed across a gallery.

wondrous worlds within/without: interspecies gossip also considers the architectural and social characteristics of its presentation site, the SIRIUS building in Cobh. The soundscape dialogues with that of Cork Harbour, which includes water, animals, and church bells, among other sonic elements. In this way, Power’s work establishes links between this place and other territories, bringing together local and faraway experiences and narratives.

Power has been commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra, Dublin; RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Dublin; Klangforum Wien, Vienna; and Quiet Music Ensemble, Cork. She performed with Pauline Oliveros, David Toop, Mazen Kerbaj, and The Quiet Club. Her albums include is it raining while you listen (Farpoint Recordings, 2014) and Human Nature (self-released, 2020). She holds a PhD in composition from the Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queen’s University, Belfast, and lectures at University College Cork.

wondrous worlds within/without: interspecies gossip is Karen Power’s first solo show in a museum or gallery context. The work is commissioned by SIRIUS, Cobh, County Cork, through an Arts Council Commissions Award 2021. This exhibition is curated by Miguel Amado, director, SIRIUS.

wondrous worlds within/without: interspecies gossip (2024) - Stereo Extract From 6min In

Created and produced by Anna Friz at Skálar | Sound Art | Experimental Music, Seydisfjördur, East Iceland. Excerpted from “Two Sleeps”, a radio artwork produced for Radio Arts, UK. Recorded in 2015. Taken from the Soundplay 2014 CD compilation by Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, 2015.  

Among other artists contributing are also: Christina Kubish (DE), BJ Nilsen (SE), Jana Winderen (NO), John Grzinich (EE/US), Kacper Ziemianin (PL), Roger Döring (DE) & Konrad Korabiewski (PL/DK/IS), Martyna Poznańska & Jacob Eriksen (PL), Porcje Rosołowe (PL), Rudy Decelière (PL)                                                                                                      More info: http://artandsciencemeeting.pl/?p=2478&lang=en

Anna Friz | Air Can Break Your Heart | excerpt

I am an Irish composer, sound artist and improviser based in Cork, Ireland. My work employs two primary sources; acoustic instruments and everyday sound-objects/environmental soundscapes. I hear and work with these two sources both separately and collectively, with each musical concept dictating the medium employed.  My creative output is diverse, both in its approach and delivery, seeking to capture and translate the essence of an idea through a variety of forms, media and methods of dissemination. For example, recent compositions have been presented as orchestral works, sound installations, string quartets, wordless opera, collaborations between sound and dance, sound and image, free + guided improvisations, solo instrumental works, duets and musical happenings.

Every day environments and how we hear every day sounds lies at the core of my practice, with a continued interest in blurring the distinction between what we consider ‘music’ and all other sound. I have listened and recorded in some of the worlds most isolated and challenging locations: The Arctic, Amazon, Namib Desert and Outback Australia and have found inspiration in the natural world when allowed to unfold. My compositions utilise our inherent familiarity with such sounds as a means of engaging with musicians and audiences. Many of my works are devised to ensure that an active listening environment is created and shared between all during any performance. Resulting works simultaneously challenge every listeners memory of hearing while presenting new contexts for such sounds. I see my work as a continual learning experiment with each new work simultaneously absorbing something from its predecessor and breaking new ground for what is yet to come.
​
Developing in parallel with composition is my practice as an improviser and educator. As an improviser I specialise in using environmental/everyday sounds/place as catalysts for constructing new sound-worlds. Such improvisations - whether solo or ensemble - offer unique interactions related to time, sonic sculpting and gesture. My educational work outside of Tertiary Education focuses on early years and my development of Natural Creators Program, which aims to harness and shape the natural curiosity of our youngest ears.

wondrous worlds within/without: interspecies gossip (2024) - Stereo Extract From 6min In

karenpower

Related tracks