Natasha Barrett's Rite-3/18 (Eng)

Natasha Barrett's work spans the extremes of concert composition through to sound-art. Whether writing for live performers or electroacoustic forces, the focus of this work stems from an acousmatic approach to sound and the aural images it can evoke. The spatio-musical potential of acousmatic sound features strongly in her work. Barrett currently lives in Norway and is active as a freelance composer, performer and researcher. For more information: www.natashabarrett.org

Rite-3/18
The energy in the Southern sounds was attractive. Lands I have many times wished to visit. Were the sounds exotic to my ears as if from an ancient civilization? Or were they more passionate in their expression than the sounds I would normally hear? What were the impulses that finally lead me to use these three sounds from the ‘South’: the Venezuelan 'Amolador' - a Spanish tradition where a man who sharpens knives and scissors wanders through the city playing a small flute and shouting "amolador", Colombian crowd protests and Chilean Chinos Flutes played in an authentic setting. Later I realised these were the most problematic sounds I could have chosen. The Chinos Flutes are so raucous that after only some minutes of monitoring my head would ache. In working with the crowd sounds I was in danger of loosing the energy of the crowd, while the lonely "Amolador" was in danger of getting lost. Finding place for the Northern sounds finally placed the Southern sounds in perspective. Crisp recordings of cold stones, water and wood set in a spatial, morphological and metaphorical counterpoint against the passion of the sounds from the South carving a semi-abstract musical-dramatic landscape. “Rite-3/18” was composed with support from the Norwegian “Fond for Lyd og Bilde”