Discover Dudamel at Barbican Centre - Technical Manager

I've been working for over 6 months as the technical coordinator in the Creative Learning department of the Barbican Centre in London.  I recently had the opportunity to work on a project bringing together over 100 young orchestral players in east London with one of the leading maestros of classical music.  Gustavo Dudamel is the conductor and musical director for the LA Philharmonic and during his residency at the Barbican we took the opportunity to arrange an open rehearsal to gain an insight into his processes, and to create an extraordinary opportunity for the young musicians we work with across London.

I took on the role of technical manager for this project, overseeing and arranging the stage planning, lighting, multitrack recording and sound mixing of the orchestra.

Watch Gustavo Dudamel work with young musicians from London and Los Angeles. On Friday 15 March, an orchestra of over 100 young players from east London and Los Angeles took part in an open rehearsal with Gustavo Dudamel. The orchestra were working on Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture in front of an audience inside the Barbican Theatre.

Motion Control - First Experiments with Hacking the XBOX Kinect

Here are my first experiments into mapping movement to sound using an Xbox Kinect, Max and Ableton Live.  I'm hoping to develop this tech into performance software to be used on stage, primarily for dancers and performers to accompany themselves, using their own movement as a sound controller.

Here are my first experiments into mapping movement to sound using an Xbox Kinect, Max and Ableton Live. I'm hoping to develop this tech into performance software to be used on stage, primarily for dancers and performers to accompany themselves, using their own movement as a sound controller.

Light Controlled Radio Project

I've always been interested in the relationship between movement and sound, particularly in terms of using the body as a control source for music software.  After scratching the surface of interactive system design when studying at university, I decided to start a new project to expand my skills in both DIY electronics and motion sensor technology.  My aim was to create a system where moving my hand in open space could control sound parameters in different ways.

I first started repairing electronic equipment when working as a technician at Northbook college.  This soon turned into 'hacking', after realising that my soldering skills could be put to more creative uses.  I began by buying an old radio from a flea market, removing the internal amplifier components to make some room, and installed a small 5 watt mono amplifier I purchased from an electronics store.  With a little re-wiring of the headphone jack I was now able to send my own sounds through my radio.

I bought an Arduino micro controller and started to explore different sensors I could connect to it.  Arduino is an open source prototyping platform that has become popular in recent years among hobbyist electronics makers and inventors for it's ease of use interface and simple programming language, along with a strong online community waiting to give you a helping hand at every hurdle you come across.

I started to work with an LDR (light dependant resistor) connected to the Arduino and followed a useful tutorial to help me get started.  I then created a basic circuit using the sensor, creating a continuous stream of data depending on how much light it detected on it's surface.

I then started to think about how I could use this data to interact with my audio software, specifically Ableton Live.  I did some research and found a dedicated Max/MSP patch called Maxuino which enables direct communication with the Arduino board and my Max software.  Next I built my own patch to take the information I received from moving my hand in front of the light resistor, to turn it into useful MIDI information I could send into my favourite DAW to control my instruments and effects!  For all you budding makers out there, here's a video of exactly how I did it.

Video tutorial of how I created an interactive, light controlled radio for the forthcoming theatre production "Fish Tales of Alaska" by The Unhidden Collective. The project involved hacking an old am/fm radio by installing my own amp, light dependant resistor and using the Arduino platform and software, to control and manipulate the sound coming from the radio.

Boss Kite - Live on NTS Radio

I was lucky enough to be invited onto You'll Soon Know's NTS radio show with The Grinel from the Donky Pitch label. We saw it as a great excuse to talk about lots of new releases and for me, to play a whole host of new tracks for the first time. Here's some highlights from my set featuring live vocoder and synth guitar action.

Boss Kite playing live on the "You'll Soon Know" show on NTS Radio. Here's some of the best bits. Grab the latest EP 'Comicon' released by Donky Pitch here: http://donkypitch.bandcamp.com/releases Hear other sounds and follow Boss Kite here: http://soundcloud.com/bosskite and @bosskite

Fish Tales of Alaska

In August 2012 I was invited to join The Unhidden Collective in a week long creative lab session at the Barbican Centre.  The group contained dancers, singers, a documentary film maker and a visual artist looking to create a multi disciplinary performance piece.  Working as sound designer, collectively we started playing with ideas on what was later to become "The Fish Tales of Alaska", culminating in a three week run at The Yard theatre in Hackney.

It gave me the opportunity to work with the fantastic "Goodbye Leopold", an acapella group from east London that use some unusual techniques such as singing backwards when composing.

More: http://i-donline.com/2012/02/dont-sound-like-no-sonnet/ In a special Valentine's Day performance for i-D online, Goodbye Leopold perform an exclusive arrangement of William Shakespeare's sonnet 18. Film: Georgia Hudson

When designing the sound for this piece I spent a lot of time sourcing and recording sounds of the sea, bells, weather reports and storms.  I wanted to bring out the ethereal quality, character and personality of the sea; a theme I felt would run strong throughout the piece.

I also took influence from traditional Tlinglit alaskan music, using drum patterns, instrumentation and folk influences to create a simple theme for our fisherman character.  This needed to be delicate and have a human feel while providing a sense of apprehension.  I wanted to portray the slightly disquieting relationship the fisherman feels he has with the sea.

I also wanted to create different ways that the performers on stage could play with sound themselves. I built an interactive radio containing a light sensor and potentiometer so that the character could physically tune in and out of pre recorded radio stations, bringing an extra sense of realism to the performance.  The light sensor was used to create strange effects as our character moved closer or further away from it.

You can hear more extracts of the songs and sounds used in the piece below.

Death and Gardening

Death and Gardening is a physical comedy exploring the human instinct to reject death.  I was luck enough to work with Wet Picnic Theatre the inception of this project over two years ago.  I was invited to join the company throughout the devising process for this piece, spending weeks at a time with the whole company at their creative hub in Eastleigh in Hampshire.  The company wanted sound and music to be an integral part of the show, so much so that they would often ask me to "make a sound" or "play us some random music you like", using these ideas to start exploring characters, themes and ideas for the piece.  It was great to be part of the collaborative process throughout, contributing towards the overall aesthetic through sound.

This is a theme we used for a scene where a rather comedic sexually charged nurse is trying to help the lead character come to terms with his death.  We played around with it in the space, where the sound and character was developed simultaneously.

As well as creating original music and editing existing material, I also made all the sound effects, ambiences and transitory sounds throughout the piece.  Here I put together a collection of hospital noises with some recorded dialogue to bring our character in and out of his coma state and into his dream world.

Depth Charge - An Immersive Theatre Experience

I was approached by Wet Picnic Theatre to design the sound for a number of installations and site specific performances at Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth.  The company had been commissioned to create an immersive piece of theatre across the site, originally a naval base, and now an urban development.  They drew from the history of the site, keeping many aspects of the design in line with history of pre war Portsmouth.

As part of the experience I was commissionedto create a blindfolded walkthrough experience involving a four channel sound system, a 9 piece community choir and a soundscape to take the audience into the world of a naval officer training for a depth charge operation.

I also had the challenge of installing sound in unusual places.  I made my own self contained sound box using a PCB case, a speaker, MP3 player and DIY amplifier kit, enabling me to place sound in a telephone box on the site without the need for mains power or a separate sound source for delivery.

I made a visit to the submarine museum and interviewed a few submariners that served in the war. With some editing and sound effects,  I turned these into sound pieces that I delivered through the speaker.

I also recorded  a few of the actors and crew reading out some old letters and created a piece to accompany part of the performance where the audience were invited to create and fly their own semaphore flags.  I called this piece "Letters To Sea" to represent the hopes and wishes of the families back home, sending thoughts and wishes to their loved ones at war.

Boss Kite - Remixes EP

I decided I wanted to take a break from writing new tunes so decided to set myself a challenge.  I've recently been listening to a lot of US RnB and decided to have a go at a remix EP to try my hand at a few stripped down pop productions.