Blue Gum Gates

Earlier this year I attended and took part in the 2023 South African Composer's Week. This took place at Stellenbosch University (SU) where I currently study. As postgraduate composition students at SU, some of us were tasked with presenting a laboratory for one of the free lunch-time events happening every day during the week. The result is the following work: Blue Gum Gates (also known as Sweet Gum Gates).
Here is a short programme note written by Antoni Schonken as seen on the sacomposers website:
"Owen Dalton, Lizé Briel, Micaela Loubser, Kerwin Petrus and Annemie du Plessis presented a 20-minute work for various instruments made of wood, including piano, uhadi, bowl, piccolo, and an electronically enhanced installation instrument constructed of a found structure of Blue Gum roots. Taking its harmonic framework from the duel-fundamental foundation of the uhadi, and its structural impetus from the gating processes which define the output of composer John Adams, this ambitious work explored timbre as structural and melodic device. After their performance, audience members had the opportunity to take part in discussion about the work's origin and aesthetics."
The work combines strict notation, aleatoric notation, and improvisation while highlighting each of the wooden instruments.
The electronically enhanced installation instrument (Blue Gum root) was discovered, setup, and created by Annemie du Plessis. The root was setup as an installation the entire week for anyone to interact with and was extremely satisfying to fool around with. It was played in a variety of ways in Blue Gum Gates: with brushes, hands, mallets, bows, etc. Location (position on the root), medium (method of playing), and articulation (speed and attack) seemed to have the most prominent effects on the root's timbre within the realms of the electronic presets being filtered through Ableton. Certain effects would work best when played in specific places on the root and with specific mediums (e.g. bowed with reverb on thinner places on the root).
Overall, Blue Gum Gates was an extremely rewarding, experimental, and collaborative process. The difference between our initial ideas for the work compared to the final product was massive and we are all happy with how it turned out!
Feel free to check out the sacomposers website here for a bit more info: www.sacomposers.com/highlight...
On the website you can find pictures and info of the many events that occurred in the week, including info about the final round of a composition competition I came 2nd place in (more to come on that in the future). There is also a second recording of the performance of Blue Gum Gates (which has more balanced audio than what I've uploaded here).
Instrumentation and their performers:
Piano & cue-shower - Owen Dalton
Piccolo & bowl - Kerwin Petrus (special mention for naming the piece)
uHadi - Lizé Briel
Blue Gum root - Micaela Loubser & Annemie du Plessis
Fun fact: none of us had performed on these instruments prior to this concert!
Electronics created and controlled by Annemie du Plessis
Photo by Antoni Schonken
Unedited recording by Lizé Briel

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