2007

These 9 cello tracks were originally improvised by invitation against a piano track Stephen Vitiello http://www.stephenvitiello.com/ recorded while on retreat in a cabin in rainfall in Nebraska.             

Cellos recorded and mixed by Garnet Willis. 

This recording reminds me of water. Water continually allows form to emerge of itself refreshed.

I recently offered a section of this piece as a guide for artist Elysha Poirier to enliven the images from my visual still score 'Dreaming in the Womb' 1998 (commissioned by Meet the Composer and Ione the curator of the Dream Festival) into animation, becoming 'Meridians'. This was part of the Still Listening project in Montreal, which invited selected composers to create 85 second compositions in celebration of Pauline Oliveros' 85 year.  http://stilllisteningoliveros.com/meridians/

BODY OF WATER (9 CELLOS)

remix by Stephen Vitiello of shoreline recording by Tom Kuo from Basically Good Media Lab ECUAD and Anne Bourne at Banff Centre for Art and Creativity

for Pete Bourne

Wave:. No4 reMix3 Stephen Vitiello 2019

I flew to Banff for a residency in Leighton Colony in 2017, to write and coalesce my thoughts and memories of Pauline Oliveros.  When I walked in to the studio there was a grand piano. Not having recent experience recording myself, the masterful and the gentle Henry Ng set me up with a Zoom recorder and software. Just before had I left Ward's Island for Banff,  I received a shock and burn from an electroflash from a broken ceramic wall socket during my dinner party, and was taken off the island by Police boat to an ambulance and taken to the burn ward north of the city. It hit the exact fulcrum of my thumb joint that controls how I move my bow, and blackened my hand. The Dr was not impressed by my burn, a young woman colleague of his who runs a burn ward in the middle east, visited me in the ER. When he saw me later he said 'healing.. you will be playing Bach and and Beethoven soon' and he wanted me to invite him to the concert. Still waiting for that .. I travelled with ease to Banff with my hand wrapped in gauze. The piano was still possible. I improvised one piece each day like a piano diary, on occasion visited by a doe who would sit outside the glass wall to the deck and listen.

Piano4 recorded by Anne Bourne Leighton Colony|| Banff Centre 2018

Composer/ cello Anne Bourne 
cello Nick Storring 
cello Matt Brubeck
cello Paul Pulford
percussion Germaine Liu

Improvisational trope on Pauline Oliveros' 'Horse Sings from Cloud'

The Interference Of Light

all donations designated for the restoration of my cello

Live composing experiment Cello Mix 7, for Willa

Last year in Brixton I had the privilege of witnessing artists and friends Gary Stewart and  Aniruddha Das prepare a marathon intermedia performance installation commissioned by the Tate Modern on the history of protest in London/ Britain. It was an initiation into the racism endemic in the history of pop music culture and a stunning historical black and white documentation of the manipulation and unprovoked violent response by police forces to nonviolent protest. During the height of ferocious beats and image mixing a beautiful floating Dub mix that made the great hall erupt in parents and children dancing together, the voice of Greta Thunberg piped in an affirmation of the power our children have inherently. And then out of the sky Ani blasts a rare sung prayer of Sukhawat Ali. Deeply grateful. Here is a fragment of the sound.

FIELD RECORDING: Aniruddha Das And GaryStewart Tate Modern 2019

In late August 2015, I drove north then east from Toronto. Matt Rogalsky had invited me to visit a small church on Wolfe Island, traditional land of Tyendinaga Mohawk, to record the continuum of voice and cello improvisations I had been circling around. It was a 3 hour drive to Wolfe with a 4 hour detour north, as my young daughter asked me to bring her along. After a brief star gazing moment in the woods, we said goodbye to my daughter’s father, then veered south east in the dark. Arriving in Kingston at dawn we slept for one hour in an old house on the shore of Lake Ontario. Then we took a short ferry ride across to Wolfe Island. Matt set up loudspeakers and microphones in the small sunlit church. It was hot. My daughter read comics lying down in the backseat of the car, parked in the shade. Various tradesmen would come and go with paint and ladders. Matt placed two mics outside the church in the garden. Cicadas and birds came into the soundfield as I improvised by heart, parallel streams of voice and cello.

Composed and improvised solo cello and voice Anne Bourne 
Recorded, mixed and mastered Matt Rogalsky / Memory Device. 

This is one track from a full album of improvisations recorded on Wolfe Island, performed within the acoustics of various spaces and instruments that is yet to be released .

DONATIONS designated to the restoration of my cello

'I Am'

In late August 2015, I drove north then east from Toronto. Matt Rogalsky had invited me to visit a small church on Wolfe Island, traditional land of Tyendinaga Mohawk,  to record the continuum of voice and cello improvisations I had been circling around. It was a 3 hour drive to Wolfe with a 4 hour detour north, as my young daughter asked me to bring her along. After a brief star gazing moment in the woods, we said goodbye to my daughter’s father, then veered south east in the dark. Arriving in Kingston at dawn we slept for one hour in an old house on the shore of Lake Ontario. Then we took a short ferry ride across to Wolfe Island. Matt set up loudspeakers and microphones in the small sunlit church. It was hot. My daughter read comics lying down in the backseat of the car, parked in the shade. Various tradesmen would come and go with paint and ladders. At one point on the recording you can hear the car door slam and the workmen address the ladder. Matt placed two mics outside the church in the garden. Cicadas and birds came into the soundfield as I improvised by heart two parallel streams of voice and cello.




Composed and improvised solo of cello and voice by Anne Bourne 
Recorded, mixed and mastered Matt Rogalsky / Memory Device. 

[This track is performed within the acoustic of the 19th century Grosser Wasserspeicher (large water reservoir) in the Prenzlauer Berg area of what was East Berlin. The resonance of the reservoir, with an incredible reverberation lasting longer than 20 seconds, was recreated live by sound artist Matt Rogalsky, using impulse responses from the Grosser Wasserspeicher which he gathered during a Berlin residency.] 

This is one track from a full album of improvisations recorded on Wolfe Island, performed within the acoustics of various spaces and instruments, that is yet to be released .

Water/WASSERL'eau

Field recording in relation to non-human life and elemental belonging/  Improvises parallel streams of cello, voice and words/ believes creative expression is an opportunity to offer an experience of equanimity.

Anne Bourne

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