THIS EVENING'S PERFORMANCE

900 Voices was created by Zoë Irvine with Lindsay Perth and Jules Rawlinson.
What you hear here is created entirely from voice. 
The work was originally created as part of the 900th anniversary celebrations of St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. It was created as a participative project involving people all over Edinburgh recording conversations on belonging and community. The hundreds of hours of recordings were presented as an installation in St Giles', activating the architecture, resounding with the thoughts, feelings and melodies of these conversations. 
The installation used a bespoke computer programme to shuffle, combine and explore what people said in different ways. Over the many hours it was live, it always served up completely new combinations.

It was presented as part of the Edinburgh International Festival in 2024. In 2025 Zoë and Jules are creating a radio version which will first broadcast on Radiophrenia in April.

https://www.900voices.org/

900 Voices EXTRACTS audio documentation

RADIO

sound design and compositions for film, theatre and radio

Sound Design & Composition

Lockdown Oratorio of a Call Centre Operator

900Voices Extract05 Ums

900Voices Extract04 Abstract

900Voices Extract04B Connection

900Voices Extract03 Pets

900Voices Extract02 WhereIshouldbe

Sketch02_FF04_mix

Sketch03_FF03_mix

Sketch04_FF02_mix

Sketch05_FF01_mix

spacial hole 1

spacial hole 4

spacial hole 2

spacial hole 5

spacial hole 3

extracts from Democratic Resonance
multichannel sound piece, 30mins duration
By Zoë Irvine & Pippa Murphy 2015

Democratic Resonance is the first piece to emerge from the artist residency in the Scottish Parliament undertaken collaboratively by Zoë Irvine (sound artist) and Pippa Murphy (composer) 2013-4. 

For an extended period the two artists explored the building in sound, walking and talking. Their sonic curiosity inhabits a crossover territory between documentary field recording, ethnography and musical composition.  Recorded conversation was also an important element.  The artists met with many different people who work in the building and began to get a sense of all the different activities which contribute to the working of Parliament.

The basis of Democratic Resonance lies in the building's different acoustics, the idea of the fabric of the building being a resonator of the activities within. The piece aims to bring to the listener a sonic experience of different spaces and times in the working life of the building. Recordings used in the piece come from the corridors, hallways, basement and courtyards. The sound reflects from Kemnay granite, Caithness flagstone, Scottish oak, Italian marble, glass, concrete, carpet.  It circles in the stairwells and lift shafts and resounds through the kitchens, corridors, hallways, basement, chamber and committee rooms.

During the Festival of Politics this year, the a 7 channel version of the piece was installed in the Parliament building. 

The artists thank all those who participated in the making of the work and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body for hosting the residency. The residency was supported by funds from Creative Scotland. 


Democratic Resonance instal extract 3

Democratic Resonance instal extract 2

Democratic Resonance instal extract 1

The Galloanserae Experimental Ensemble plays challenging experimental music.

The Galloanserae Experimental Ensemble are a socially engaged group of hens and human.

The Galloanserae Experimental Ensemble aims to explore ideas of trans-speciesism, human/non-human relations, ecological interdependence and communicative musicality with absurdity and humour.

The Galloanserae Experimental Ensemble uses sound to communicate. 

The Galloanserae Experimental Ensemble uses sound and composition to interrogate and reflect on hierarchies and cultural production. 

The Galloanserae Experimental Ensemble does not anthropomorphise hens, but rather brings human music into the gallinaceous language.

The Galloanserae Experimental Ensemble’s work is for hens and humans and any other creatures who like to listen to it.

The Galloanserae Experimental Ensemble

DIAL-A-DIVA is a 24 hour global telephonic event that has taken place twice, in Glasgow (CCA Gallery) in 2005 and in Norway as part of the Stavanger2008 European Cultural Capital events, on this occasion the world wide audience was in excess of 36,000. The performers were broadcast live by telephone while listeners could tune in live on a free phone number or going to the online stream. The programme of performance went from New Zealand and the date line through Australasia, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, arriving back at the date line 24 hours later. This medley gives a taster of DIAL-A-DIVA bringing together samples from the phonecast and behind the scenes recordings.
In order of appearance: Semuin – Germany; Aisling Docherty – N.Ireland; Paola del Rio – Australia; StyLo – Ivory Coast; Security Guard – Burundi; Barmmy Boy – Sierra Leone; Berglind Agustsdottir – Iceland; MC Boikutt – Palestine; FS Blumm – Germany; Miles Lang – England; Razvigore – Serbia. 
DIAL-A-DIVA was originally created as the result of a Creative Scotland Award in 2004.


Diva medley

Have you ever seen fragments of audio tape flapping in the wind? Snagged round a branch or lamp post? trailing down the road?
www.magneticmigration.net

Sound Drop Magnetic Migration Music

Producer: Zoë Irvine 
Extracts from Odyssey of a Lonely Woman read by Vivien Löschner. Other voices heard (in 
order of appearance): Assistant at Celje Tourist Office, Gerald Straub; Marijan Pusavec writer 
and librarian at Celje Central Library; A Keeper of Porkrajinski Museum, Celje; and members of 
the Ostercek family. 
Field recordings made in Slovenia, Austria and Italy. 
Duration: 30mins 

Travels Together is a radiophonic work on the trail of Alma Maximilane Karlin (1889-1950). 
Karlin was an extraordinary Slovenian traveller and writer. In the autumn of 1919 she set off on 
a global journey that was to last for 8 years including South Peru, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Borneo, 
Australia, New Zealand, Java, Thailand and India... Travels Together covers the beginning of the 
journey, as Alma leaves her home town of Celje in Slovenia, which was then part of the Austro- 
Hungarian Empire and attempts to take a ship to any far away destination which will have her. 
The work weaves extracts from the first chapter of Karlin's book "Einsame Weltreise" (The 
Odyssey of a Lonely Woman) together with Zoë Irvine's journeys on the Alma trail. 

Commissioned for Drift by New Media Scotland in 2004 
Work completed and released 2006 
 


Travels Together

A Selection of Tracks from HAIRWAVES A Cautionary Tale by Zoë Irvine & Mark Vernon in collaboration with Freight Design, Glasgow.

A friend once explained to me that it is essential to dress up for a trip to the hairdressers, to attempt to express the style of what you're looking for in the cut, clothes & colours that could be visually de-coded by the hairdresser, something beyond words to assist the communication, fraught as it is. This project was born prior to this top tip, after yet another brutal scalping at the hands of a Dundee hairdresser. Mark and I had decided to collaborate, but didn't yet know what we would do. I was not concentrating fully as we discussed various ideas, irrationally distracted by the undesired and uncooperative HAIRCUT. And so it was that in 2001 we began to record hairdressers. Mark, not having such a personal bug bare with barbers soon broadened the scope to pet grooming, wig making and the paranormal. We've collected much material, from anecdotes blowing hot and cold on the subject of hairdryers, to accounts of the bald facts on barbers. We have snipped and textured, layered, added some highlights and brushed away the clippings so we can now offer up this cautionary tale.


http://www.freightdesign.co.uk/hairwaves/index.htm




 

29 Hairdos and Don'ts

Sound artist Zoë Irvine and visual artist Helen Douglas collaborate to create a richly textured, multi layered soundscape composition (2 CDs: Irvine) and ornately interwoven visual narrative (2 sided concertina book: Douglas), exploring a sense of memory and place. Inspired in the month of May by a week long visit to Illiers Combray, the small town immortalized by Marcel Proust in his epic novel In Search of Lost Time, Irvine and Douglas weave together their own distinct mythologies and reveries; their subjective responses elliptically united by their shared sense of place. 

Illiers combray soundwalk

These files are the broadcast elememt of ŠUMA a guided sound walk by Zoë Irvine & Kuchke. Commissioned by Sanctuary
sanctuarylab.org/artists/suma-zoe-irvine-kuchke/

ŠUMA (pronounced sh-oo-ma) is the word or root of the word for forest in a number of Balkan languages.

This immersive sonic experience takes its inspiration from Balkan songs of trees and forests, which are explored, extended and re-composed. These distant tales, harmonies and rhythms from the other side of Europe then inhabit this forest and incorporate it’s soundscape as part of the piece.

ŠUMA is the first collaboration between sound artist Zoë Irvine and 9 voice, female Balkan choir Kuchke.

01 shrutidrone

Produced by Zoë Irvine
Commissioned and originally aired on Radiophrenia.scot / 87.9FM (Glasgow, Scotland) First Broadcast September 2016

The Edible Pet was created by Zoë Irvine and her son Logan, with contributions from family and friends in Edinburgh Scotland, Northern Ireland and South West France. It is a story that travels from pet keeping to dining table, taking in some back garden ethics, pet psychology, trans-species music making, dramatic mishaps, life, death and recipes. There are some scenes of a graphic nature, this programme may not be suitable for vegetarians. 

Featuring in order of appearance: Daniel Manson, Rab Lendrum, Chloë Manson, Gilberte Manson, Juno Neil, Rebecca Palmer, Eva & Nicole, Logan Young, Alexia Allen, Doreen Young, Jill Lendrum, Michelle Davitt, Pauline Wilson, Morris Young, Robert Young, Osvanira Alves & Jane Hunter.
Extracts from A Household Book for Africa by E.G. Bradley read by Michelle Davitt.
 Extracts from The Sly Fox and The Little Red Hen by Vera Southgate read by Zoë Irvine
Extracts from humane animal harvest video with Alexia Allen by Paul Wheaton.
Bird calls by Elise Rouanet & Aimé Souyri from ‘Charmeurs d’Oiseaux’

Original music by Zoë Irvine & The Galloanserae Experimental Ensemble. The music in the programme is derived from the calls and sounds of Jackie, Diamond and Tweed the pet hens featured in the programme, transposed into musical notation. 
With the exception of these additional songs - Le Poulette Grise – Alan Mills; Ain’t Nobody Here but us Chickens – Louis Jordan. 

With love to Grandma and in memory of Jackie.

http://www.zoeirvine.net/edible-pet/

Radiophrenia Commission

The Edible Pet 2017

12WELCOMEintro

featuring the voice of Kiki Smith which is an extract of the first recorded conversation I made.

Like A Bird

When I Pretend

FULL DORIC MODE 
by Zoë Irvine (2019)
Commissioned by Radiophrenia & National Library Scotland (Scotland’s Sounds)

FULL DORIC MODE is a voyage into a little heard sound archive of Doric speaking voices from 2006/7. This sound doc weaves together the archive material with contemporary reflections. The past and present intermingle through the medium of recorded conversation. The archive takes us into rural life in times gone by, farming, school days, home and working life, the contemporary conversations look back at the making of the archive and the power of oral history and folklore more generally, as well as reflecting on the dialect itself and the situation for Doric today.

List of contributors:
Helen Taylor - oral historian, recordist on the Formartine Oral History Project.
Carol Eddie - participant in the Formartine Oral History Project 
Fiona-Jane Brown - historian and folklorist, co-ordinator of the Formartine Oral History Project, more info for F-J Brown here >> www.hiddenaberdeentours.co.uk
Alistair Bell - Sound Collections Curator, National Library of Scotland and Scotland's Sounds Network co-ordinator.
Chris Wright - folklorist and ethnologist 
Nicolas Le Bigre - folklorist and ethnologist
Jill Lendrum - producers' mother.

Voices from the archives include:
Participants: John Barron, Jimmy Dick, Carol Eddie, Jim Kirkpatrick, Akki Manson, Douglas Paterson, Charlie Reid, Ethel Stranger, Jimmy Mackie, Evelyn Munro, Maureen Singer & interviewers: Fiona-Jane Brown, Roland Buchan, Val Fowlie, Ian Sandison, Helen Taylor, Vi Taylor, Helen Tawes, Judith Sleigh
Doric recitation: Kathleen Noble

Music:
Renditions of The Bonny Lass O’ Fyvie & Barnyards of Delgaty
Played by Don MacKinnon (bass, pipes), Rosie Keast (fiddle) & Aaron Bruce (guitar & voice) Bruce MacKinnon (spoons) 
Further music from the AROHA Christmas party recording from the Formartine Oral History Project.

Sound artist Zoë Irvine spent her childhood in North East Scotland, she was born in Aberdeenshire, her grandma (mother’s side) and father came from generations of Doric speakers. Other works by Zoë can be found here >> zoeirvine.net

The Formartine Oral History Project  was a community project from 2006/7 in the Formartine area of Aberdeenshire, North East Scotland, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The recordings were made by volunteer enthusiasts and are accessible to listen to at The Elphinestone Institute, Aberdeen University.

The term ‘Doric’ is thought to come from the Greek for ‘rural’ or ‘rustic’ and was a rural dialect of ancient Greek. More info on the origins of origins of Doric as a name can be found here >> https://bit.ly/2TZ0Ahq
If you’re not a Doric speaker yourself you can consult RGU’s Doric Dictionary here >> 
https://bit.ly/2gk9pTT

FULL DORIC MODE

INDEX, a Radiophrenia Melodrama (2019)
by Zoë Irvine

A poetry of titles. Listing, listening and indexing what has taken place over the last two weeks. This half hour piece marks the end of Radiophrenia’s formal broadcasts this year.
Created in collaboration with Helen Clocherty & Rhona Taylor. Additional voice Petros Tsaftaridis.

With thanks to Leonardo D’Andrea.
An Eggbox Audio Production

INDEX

MUSIC FOR THE UNCONCIOUS MIND
This is the sound track from a sound installation I created in 2011. The listener was invited to recline on a treatment table in a darkened room on their own. 
The piece brings together the soundscape of intensive care with Bach’s Goldberg Variations played out on sampled ECG monitors.

I became interested in the soundscape of ICUs when visiting a relative a couple of years previously. He began to suffer from what was called ICU syndrome, this is a hallucinatory and disoriented state brought about by the noise levels, the lack of day/night rhythm, the drugs used etc. The resulting acute sleep deprivation in patients can create further health complications and is a challenging working acoustic environment for healthcare professionals despite their habituation.

This rather depressing scenario put me in mind of the apocryphal tale that accompanies the composing of the Goldberg Variations which also touches on illness and insomnia. For more detail on this see:
http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/tomita/essay/cu4.html

By bringing these two elements together I wanted to create an installation work that was at once serious and a little comedic, hopefully thought provoking too.

The piece was shown in the micro cinema, VRC, Dundee Contemporary Arts as part of Shared Imagination in 2011.



Music for the Unconcious Mind

Bergen National Opera presents
THIS EVENING'S PERFORMANCE HAS NOT BEEN CANCELLED
https://thiseveningsperformance.net/

A unique, playful telephonic event. Connecting callers to a behind the scenes world of opera by phone through conversation and listening. 

The operas presented here were cancelled or postponed as a result of Covid-19. Some of them reached the stage, some did not, some of the productions are lost in their entirety, some may find another life, but all of them had cancelled performances.

Call to experience the unexpected on Friday June 12th 2020
6:30pm - 8:30 BST // 7:30pm - 9:30pm CET

AUSTRIA +43 720 022 865
BELGIUM +32 (0) 240 19133
DENMARK +45 787 237 03
FINLAND + 358 923 195 616
FRANCE  +33 (0) 170 759 181
GERMANY +49 202 7169 9414
IRELAND  +353 (0) 144 7529
ITALY   + 39 (0) 236 049 224
NETHERLANDS +31 (0)20 -7168 434
NORWAY  +47 56 99 99 58 
POLAND +48 221 530 708
SPAIN +34 914 146 601
SWEDEN   +46 (0) 850 662 774
SWITZERLAND + 41 (0) 445 800 526
UK + 44 (0) 207 741 0077

https://thiseveningsperformance.net/

HELLO GOODEVENING micro mix

DIAL Bergen National Opera 01

DIAL TEATRO REAL 08

DIAL The Airport Society 08

DIAL Wuppertaler Bühnen 06

DIAL Dutch National Opera / Holland Festival 104

DIAL Dutch National Opera / Holland Festival 07

The Last Afternoon in Antwerp (5:20)
An instalment from the Priscilla Tapes by Zoë Irvine 
Created for the RSA annual show 'Between Late and Early' 2013
Featuring improvised music from a live session in Almaty, Kazakhstan by Sacha Chikmakov (guitar), Zoë Irvine (computer) and Denis Kolokol (Electronics).


zebraphone

Pinned to spotlight

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