PRESS RELEASE: STARTS
The Rimutaka Tunnel goes to Montreal
Trains sounds and historic film clips of the construction of the Rimutaka
Tunnel will feature in a concert on June 9 at the International Viola
Congress in Montreal.
Composer Lissa Meridan was commissioned to write a work for the Viola
Congress by Professor Donald Maurice, Head of String Studies at the New
Zealand School of Music, Wellington. ³The piece is called Tunnel Vision,²
Meridan explains. ³ The live viola is accompanied by an electroacoustic
track which uses sounds sampled from my journeys on the Wairarapa-Wellington
line. Historic film of the construction of the Rimutaka Tunnel courtesy of
the New Zealand Film Archive and video artist Emil McAvoy will be
projected behind Donald as he performs the piece "
Meridan will be involved in another musical project the following day. She
will join Mike Donn from the Victoria University School of Architecture and
Design to give a presentation at the Architecture Music Acoustics Conference
at Ryerson University, Toronto. She explains: ³Over the last six years
students from the School of Architecture and Design and electroacoustic
composition students from the Music Department have collaborated on short
films featuring animation and music, in which the architecture is the
central 'character'. Our presentation will be based on the results of these
collaborations."
ENDS
Background:
Composer Lissa Meridan is also Director of the Lilburn Electroacoustic
Studio at the New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University, Wellington.
Electroacoustic music is music that is created in the studio through the
manipulation and reworking of sound samples taken from natural acoustic
sources.