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Welcome to Sounds of Europe, a platform for field recording. The blog of the website will travel to a different European country every month where a local organisation or artist will be responsible for maintaining it. Each country´s particular context and practices with regards to field recording will be explored and presented in a personal way.
Field Recordings from New York at the ICMC in Ljubljana
07/25/2012 · Miha

Sam Salem is a composer living and working in Manchester, UK. His work acousmatic music and audiovisual installations have been performed and exhibited in festivals and conferences around the world.

He has received a number of awards for his work, in competitions including Musica Viva, Musica Nova (Honorary Mention), Joensuu Soundscape Composition Contest and Espace du Son 2010. Sam recently received a PhD in Composition from the University of Manchester, where he studied under the supervision of David Berezan and Ricardo Climent.

His 2010 Piece “Dead Poets” will be performed at the International Computer Music Conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia – www.icmc2012.si :

Dead Poets (2010): A stereo acousmatic work for concert diffusion
1. Central Park (A Conversation with Adam)
2. Last Stop
3. Coney Island, Baby
4. Phone Home / We Were Champions
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The piece is essentially a journey through different areas of the city. It begins in Central Park and moves towards to Coney Island (via the NY Subway), before returning to Central Park. A graphic score of the piece details each of the sounds used. Sam created it as part of his PhD.

Notes on the Graphic Score:

1. Morphologies are categorised by source as indicated by the key at the start of each movement and the ‘Distribution of Materials’ diagram.

2. Sound objects containing “musical quotations” are represented by “…” with no transcription offered.

3. Dialogue is represented by *#.

This score was produced through a combination of listening to the final work and consulting the original session files: it is not intended as a conclusive scientific analysis. A ‘dynamic contour’ is included as a visual guide to the amplitude of the piece, as the density of morphologies may not correspond to amplitude at any given moment.

Download full score