One of my large-scale collaborative works started as an Oerknal project in early 2020. I was lucky to get a like-minded, amazing musician Christian Smith as a soloist for a new piece. My idea was to share the creative process by not compromising my own vision as a composer, but complementing the uniqueness and skillset of Christian as a central part of the composition process.
We started off by outlining a few principles on which we base the composition; extensive use of found objects, household items, relatable images and sounds, and confines of a domestic space were crucial to the image we wanted to portray. We wanted to enrich the sound world everyone has around them and show the depth that can be reached by layering ordinary sounds, and augmenting quiet and unique sound characteristics.
Another central point that we felt strongly about was to not use heavy processing of the acoustic sound. Everything that is heard in the piece is a result of layering the original sound and zooming in to the nuances of delicate, quiet sounds.
After the premiere of the first short piece, we wanted to continue further exploring the potential of the work and write another part for it. This is where the quiet sounds and zooming in really started to emerge and I’m most excited about the final sections of the following TROMP edition. Even though I’m a big fan of the huge sonic possibilities of a symphony orchestra in which the evolution of the instruments into clear, defined colours can create a wonderful alternate universe, it feels important to me to also work on mediums that are relatable in their ordinariness. So instead of going on a path of searching for the unheard, we wanted to zoom in and discover the magic of the everyday sounds.
‘How Sauce Sounds’ is an evolving project. My purpose is to continue opening up the microverse of everyday percussion objects and zooming in as far as I can. Next collaborations include a new piece for Christian and another version for João Borralho, coming to the concert stages in 2025.