Maps

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Maps

Composers: Juliana Hodkinson & David Young
Scenography: Louise Beck
Text: written & recited by Cynthia Troup
Musicians: Natasha Anderson (recorders), Katrine Gislinge (pianoforte), Yasutaka Hemmi (violin), Henrik Larsen (percussion), Caerwen Martin (violoncello) and for the Melbourne performances, Vanessa Tomlinson (Percussion) and Helle Thun (voice).

MAPS The Soundtrack is an auditory journey through a musical and poetical landscape. Or rather, it recollects a journey through the landscapes of the collaborative project MAPS, as presented in Melbourne at the North Melbourne Town Hall (2000), and in Copenhagen at the Musikvidenskabeligt Institut (2002). A rich and evocative sound-collage, The Soundtrack weaves together fragments of material from the live performances as well as studio recordings.

Conceived as a recollection of the site-specific works, and a reflection upon them, MAPS The Soundtrack first leads the listener through an imaginary maze. S/he becomes flaneur-écouteur - a sonic wanderer - encountering sounds and musics that are often surprising, perhaps only partly recognisable, yet always compelling; inviting the listeners' own projections. The swinging doors and resonant corridors of the maze are then briefly intercepted by Cynthia Troup's poetical text. This seems to more literally describe a pathway - from the beach, the park, the sky and the suburbs, through city streets, the public library and cemetery, to the home, and finally to nowhere and everywhere. Troup s recitation becomes layered with associative aural references and with fragments from the maze. So its mesmeric repetitions trace also a metaphorical trajectory through memory into awareness of the present.

Not only a document of recall, MAPS The Soundtrack is in this way an independent journey of its own. On this journey, the listener now follows, now leads, creating points of orientation based on the constant flow and clash of different intonations, images, atmospheres.

Following the March 2003 broadcast on Danmarks Radio, limited release CDs of the 34 minute creative documentation of the Melbourne and Copenhagen performances of MAPS are now available.

CD produced, mixed & edited by Thomas Winther & Juliana Hodkinson.
TECHNICAL production by the Tonmeister Department of the Royal Danish Academy of Music
LIVE & STUDIO RECORDINGS from MAPS Part 1 Melbourne (2000) and MAPS Part 2 København (2002)
CD GRAPHIC DESIGN by Propellant
BOOK GRAPHIC DESIGN by Marianne Lumholdt