To hear on Sunday 15 and 22 May 2011,
2 pm - 9 pm:
Sarnath
(2010, German Premiere)
by Felipe Otondo
Felipe Otondo on 'Sarnath':
This piece was created as part of the project The Buddha's Footprint using field recordings from Buddhist pilgrimage sites in India. The field recordings, made by Francis Booth, include bells, drums and chants from the places where the Buddha lived and taught. The composition explores the use of textures and rhythmic passages to create different types of sonic environments linked to intense and subtle states of mind experienced through meditation practice.
Felipe Otondo
Born in Santiago, Chile, in 1972, he studied acoustics in Chile where he started composing and performing music for different experimental theatre projects. In 1999 he moved to Denmark to do post-graduate studies in sound perception and studied composition privately with Anders Brødsgaard. In 2005 he pursued his composition studies at the University of York in England with Ambrose Field and Roger Marsh and obtained a PhD in 2008. He has taken part in composition master classes with, among others, Trevor Wishart, George Lewis, Chris Watson and Natasha Barrett.
His work focusses on electronic music, compositions for dance and theatre and sound installations. His works have been performed in festivals across Europe, Asia and the Americas and received the first prize at the 2008 Citta di Udine International Composition Competition and the second prize at the 2008 CEMVA composition prize in Brazil. He also collaborated with Neil Sorrel in the music for the BAFTA-award winning radio play The Glass Man commissioned by BBC radio 4.
Felipe Otondo currently works as a lecturer at the Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom.