Biophony No. 1

Jones, Howard

About the work

The word ‘biophony’ (first coined by the bioacoustician Bernie Krause) is derived from the Greed words for ‘life’ and ‘sound’. Within their natural environment, creatures deploy their individual vocalisations to counter the noises made by other vocal groups, including humans. In thi way, each species strives to maintain its own ‘acoustic territory’.

This piece may be thought of as a kind of musical ecosystem in which sound elements develop and interact with each other. As the music unfolds, repeated short motifs come into contact, and may form ‘symbiotic’ relationships. Symbiosis can take many forms, some benign, others destructive, so some elements will flourish and possibly dominate: some will adapt; some will evolve into different forms; some will become mutually dependent; and some will simply disappear.

It was composed for Open Score 2012 and is dedicated to CoMA.

Origin

Open Score commission 2012

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