Concert Music

Commissioned by Ostrava Center for New Music and Ensemble Garage, this work centers around the phenomenon Föhnkrankheit, translating to "blow-dry disease". Common to alpine regions in Germany and Switzerland, when dense winds rapidly descend mountains, this causes rapid rises in temperature in the underlying towns, causing rises in migraines, depression and suicide rates. This work explores highly contrasting sound worlds of explosive 12 tone cacophony, and white hot dances on unison drones.

An exploration of limited-aleatoricism, with time-space notation that preserves free interpretation alongside a rigid structural development. With each phrase being the same 8 second long system, performers are constantly analysing themselves and the piece itself to gradually create a more solidifed interpretation of the time-space notation. However, with each system one note is extended from a staccato to a sustained tone, this create a linear process that provides a pre-composed trajectory.

Performed by the Sydney Conservatorium Orchestra, this work utilises the orchestra to create larger quasi-unison gestures. Mimicking the murmuration of birds in flight, the orchestra is treated as one mass organism, with the tension and release lying on how faithfully this concept is adhered to throughout the piece.

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contact wishartlouis@gmail.com for a recording link.

Composed as part of a composer exchange with the University of Houston, this work was premiered by the Sydney Conservatorium of Music's New Music Ensemble, before receiving it's American Premiere in Houston, Texas by the AURA Ensemble. The work explores non-linear interpretations of time, where the work analyses itself, rewinds, starts over and struggles to define itself. 

Noted for it's exploration of pulse, this work establishes a fractal ecosystem of what could be considered a "pulse". From the opening, ranging from grand piano arpeggios to rapid single note guitar tremolos, this piece establishes this germinal concept to create a diverse vocabulary of unified sound.

This work explores amplifier feedback as a source for melodic material in an improvisational capacity within a fixed composition context. With many passages asking for one guitarist to perform a fully notated solo, with the other purely using the proximity of the guitar to the amplifier to create melodic accompaniment. Each guitarist faces their amplifier, set up parallel to the sound hole, with the feedback double vibrating the strings and acoustic body of the instrument.

This work explores the interaction between digital sounds and human dopamine receptors. With humans' data being the "New Oil", as the piece progresses we see how notification sounds and mouse clicking take different levels of ownership over the performers, by cueing and cutting off players, to either imitating players or being the imitated.