"a piece to return to again and again... haunting and lulling"

Janek Schaefer has won the British Composer of The Year Award for Sonic Art 2008 for his work Extended Play, which was commissioned for HCMF 2007.

The winners of the 2008 British Composer Awards were announced on Tuesday 2 December 2008 in a ceremony hosted by the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters at the Law Society, London.

Now in its sixth year, the Awards are sponsored annually by the Performing Right Society (PRS), and are run in association with BBC Radio 3.

As winner of the Award for Sonic Art, Schaefer will receive £5,000 from the PRS Foundation towards a new commission or towards a project which contributes to the furtherance of the artist's career.

Extended Play

Extended Play (Triptych for the children of war) is an uplifting and enveloping bittersweet tribute to the child survivors of conflict and war.

I started my own family recently, and have been very aware of how lucky we are in our own situation. I have been comparing this to the fact that my mum was born in Warsaw in 1942. How opposite can two beginnings be? It dazzles me and inspired me. Also, in our new garden is a derelict WWII bomb shelter. I used to think it was a nuisance, until I appreciated what it represented for the first residents to move in.

As I turn on the TV, what I see reported is the never ending cycle of war, terror and conflict of one type or another. I'm not convinced you could make a 24hr News Channel about only the 'very very best' things that are happening globally, right now. So, Extended Play contemplates and celebrates hope, survival, and new beginnings.

In the installation, a cello, a violin, and a piano are recorded individually playing their part of a 10-minute composition inspired by the WWII system of musical codes called 'Jodoform'. These were musical messages broadcast between London and Warsaw by the BBC World Service after the midday news. Extended Play lifts and propagates a three note phrase from a jolly Polish Tango that was broadcast on the day my mother was born. The score was developed in close collaboration with the talented young composer Michael Jennings.

The string parts are played by two brothers, Simon Hewitt Jones and Thomas Hewitt Jones with Michael Jennings on piano. Each instrument solo is then cut onto a 12' vinyl record and played back repeatedly on three retro record players at various different speeds. This mechanical technique alters both the pitch and the speed of the instrument parts. Each of the nine record players (three for each instrument) is sensitive to the presence of people - get too close and it stops playing until you stand still or move away. The result is a continuously shifting mass of evolving sound that is never the same twice.

© Janek Schaefer

'a piece to return to again and again... haunting and lulling' The Wire

British Composer Awards: http://www.britishacademy.com/awards/britishcomposerawards/

Janek Schaeffer, Extended Play:http://www.audioh.com/projects/extendedplay.html 

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