CEC

Communauté électroacoustique canadienne
Canadian Electroacoustic Community
GM-500 — 1455, boulevard De Maisonneuve Ouest, Montréal, QC, H3G 1M8, Canada
http://cec.sonus.ca - cec@sonus.ca

1987)

James Harley

for solo flute/bass flute and tape

Per Foramen Acus Transire is dedicated in memoriam, to Andrei Tarkovsky, the Russian film-maker who died of cancer in December 1986. Tarkovsky’s work communicates a deeply personal struggle to break through the constraints of a material(istic) world to “an awareness of the eternal within the finite, the spiritual within matter, the limitless given form…. Art affirms all that is best in man — hope, faith, love, beauty, prayer” (from Sculpting in Time).

Per Foramen Acus Transire, which translates as “through the eye of the needle” (Gospel of Luke, 18:25), attempts to portray this struggle in music through the formal structure, the development of the musical material, and the relation between the live performer and the tape. The electronic material was realized on the UPIC computer music system at CEMAMu in Paris.

Per Foramen Acus Transire was begun in December 1986 and completed in October 1987. It was written for Nancy Ruffer who gave the premiere on 27 July 1988 at the Electric Music Festival in Newcastle, England.

Studio: The electronic material was realized on the UPIC computer music system at CEMAMu in Paris. The pre-recorded flute material was produced at the Electronic Music Studio of City University in London in collaboration with Nancy Ruffer and Javier Alvirez. The mixing was completed at the Studio Eksperimentalne of PRiTV (Polish Radio) in Warsaw with Ewa Guziolek.
Premiere: Electric Music Festival in Newcastle, England
Awards: Irino Competition (Japan) 1988, 2nd prize.