Why did you choose to work with the performing media of acoustic instruments combined with electronics? What were the challenges you faced in combining the two and how did you overcome them?

Fiona: This is my favourite medium to work in as I love the soundworld that is available to me by combining electronics with acoustic instruments. I find it a great way to explore the rich timbres created by the melding of acoustic instruments with electronics. The major challenge for me when working this way is to create a seamless soundworld. I overcame this by putting the live instruments through effects such as delay, reverb and pitch shifter. I also generated most of the electronics through recordings of the live flute and voice. In this way I’m generating a soundworld unique to the blending of those two instruments and embedding it into the electronics from its inception.

What was your compositional process?

Fiona: I started with the concept of the piece and the text that I wanted to use. The piece has been evolving slowly over time, especially through the recordings that I made of the flute and voice. I recorded a number of lullabies with the flute and then processed these to make a washy, hypnotic bed of sound. This then became my starting point for layering the text. I then broke the text up into sections to come up with the overall structure of the piece. All this time as I was generating the electronic track, I was workshopping the flute and vocal sounds through a MaxMSP patch to get an idea of what would work with the sounds I had already created. Then I came up with the final structure of my piece and wrote the score for the flute and soprano.

How has the technology that you have used enhanced or hindered the musical possibilities of your piece?

Fiona: Using MaxMSP has really enhanced my ability to blend the acoustic and electronic soundworlds through the processing of the live instruments. I used ProTools to record the instruments and create the backing track. This has allowed me to transform the flute and voice recordings in ways which wouldn’t be possible in a live setting. It has also allowed me to layer many more sounds than I would be able to with the two instruments alone.

How did you develop your musical material throughout the piece?

Fiona: The musical material was initially developed through the processing of recorded sound, largely using the GRM freeze and evolution plugins. These plugins allowed me to create beds and loops of sound which formed the starting point and underlying driver of the musical material. Once these sounds were in place I was then able to layer and develop a structure to the piece. The musical ideas for the live sounds were developed through improvising over the electronic bed I created and then making selections from there of what worked well and what I wanted to use.

How would you describe the process of collaboration?

Fiona: Collaboration is an invaluable tool for a composer or any creative.  Through sharing ideas and working together it’s possible to draw on each other’s expertise and push oneself in new directions.  In this project I worked closely with Lamorna and Jane on developing sounds that would work well with the effects processing used in the work. In particular with the flute we had a number of workshops to find the best sounds for this piece.

Lamorna, could you tell a bit about performing the piece?

Lamorna: One of the biggest challenges of performing a piece like Imago is staying together with the backing track which is fixed. This means that you need to play with a stopwatch – keeping an eye on the clock to make sure that you move from one section to the next at the correct moment as well as listening out for aural cues. Some gestures need to be synchronised like regular chamber music so following the score and having a close visual connection between the musicians is also vital.