excerpt from sound installation piece Αντηχήσεις  

Forest night

The piece is about open spaces on the mountains. In the mountains sound travels great distances, reflects and comes back through very strange ways. Often, one might have the illusion that the mountain is ‘singing’, that there are voices coming in an unpredictable way. Similar soundings one might experience in large caves, or gorges and some times in the big cities, where the tall buildings form valleys, mountain tops, slopes and gorges. These formations of earth and culture amplify specific frequencies of the sound spectrum that give to each place a characteristic ‘voice’. Voices coming from the mountains seem to be projected into inner soundscapes. In these spaces either in the big cities or in the mountains inner soundscape is more present.  One might speak to the place and have a reply. The piece ends with a prayer for ‘mountain’ voices, whisperings and transformed water sounds.

In-s-cape 3

Photography by Martin U Waltz.

"If the meaning is lost
in this night which is ours,
the feeling, this power, 
continues to be
for who knows afterwards
great struggles
signify its existence."

"Si le sens se perd
dans cette nuit qui est la nôtre,
le sentiment, cette puissance, 
continue d'être
pour qui sait après
de grandes luttes
en signifier l'existence."

Jean Marc de Samie
Accueillant Sans Mot
poèmes

All We Are

HeartBit | for human heartbeat, bandoneon and live electronics (2022)
laptop: Orestis Karamanlis | bandoneon: Kostas Zigeridis

A human heart is amplified and sent to a computer running a programming language; this delicate "instrument" is responsible for triggering the audio processes in real-time and for controlling the musical flow. The performer becomes a listener to his own internal rhythm and attempts to adjust the unfolding of the music psychosomatically, thus engaging in a constant loop between his own sounding body and mental state.

HeartBit - Excerpt

The thematic essence revolves around a synopsis of a day in Athens, spanning from the invigorating morning energies to the tranquil shades of night. The violin, with its roots in Greek traditional rhythms and folk songs, acts as a conduit, bridging ancient Greek musical texts, traditional rhythms, and contemporary technology for audio data processing. This harmonious interplay seeks to unite the echoes of the past with the rhythms of the present, offering a musical journey that transcends temporal boundaries.

Synopsis_8.1 - StereoReductionReference

One might consider the idea of reverberation in a metaphorical way.
As the sound resulting from an action depends both on the geometry of the particular place and on the frequency content of the sound source, similarly any object or action might have a type of reverberation inside us. For example, I see a glass of water reflecting the light in a particular way and this sensation might evoke a type of “resonant” reaction inside me. A chain reaction of associations could begin from a sound. 
This association model  has been applied in this composition to sonic memories. An action in the present environment might evoke a memory and this record another one, and so on. The pathways created by this type of procedure can coexist simultaneously while the forming might have an analogy to an imaginary journey.
This form results in a guided sonic experience which is organised using this model of indirect- direct causality in parallel with evocative association both
at the level of meanings evoked from the soundings and of the sounds
themselves. 

Reverberations - Αντηχήσεις

This is the first part of a composition about my 4 years experience of research on the past soundings within Melidoni Cave in Crete. (July 2013)

Into The Cave - Part A - The Journey

A postcard to Wales.

Hiraeth can be interpreted a homesickness for a time and place that exists only in one’s memory. A nostalgia that rears its head at unexpected moments, shifting shapes as contexts change and memories form new meanings.

Using the home as an allegory for hiraeth, sounds were selected for their capacity to draw forth strong personal memories. These materials are recontextualised as we venture through the living spaces, becoming tinged with new emotions and associations as the environment shifts around them, each transformation revealing the layers of nuances of hiraeth.

Here One Moment (stereo reduction)

a soundwalk - to Hildegard Westerkamp
This composition started as a personal experiment to impose the structure of a soundwalk* to a fixed media composition. Consequently it became a composition through and about soundwalking. The last months of 2016 I had the opportunity to guide four soundwalks and this experience of silent listening together with a group of people, while walking and exploring the soundings of different places was a mind and soul opening experience. 
In the piece only short fragments of the Santorini soundwalk recording* together with other sonic elements, recorded or manipulated, have been used. The voice of a child – listener in the Santorini soundwalk (October 2016) has been included without any editing other than selecting the appropriate fragments of the recording.  

*   https://www.sfu.ca/~westerka/writings%20page/articles%20pages/soundwalking.html   
** Burhan Kose recorded the Santorini soundwalk in October 2016, during the Kinisi festival (http://www.kinisifestival.com/blog/2016/10/20/sound-and-silence-with-katerina-tzedaki). I would like to thank the organizers of the festival Alyssa Moxley and Ramona Stout for the invitation, and Burhan Kose for recording the soundwalk.

a soundwalk

A track written for the 2006 theater performance of "The Line".
Commission: Small Scene of the Contemporary Theater of Athens.

Synopsis_8.1 - StereoReductionReference

Penelope Bekiari

Related tracks