A Sailor's Table of Degrees

'The Storm' (1704), Daniel Defoe

'Great storm in the Downs' by Frederick Whymper

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin—his control

Stops with the shore. 

'Child Harold's Pilgrimage', Lord Byron, (publ. bet 1812 & 1818)

In Solitude This Fear is Lived

Agnes Martin (1912-2004) Untitled, signed and dated 'a.martin 1960' (on the backing board) ink on paper 12 x 11 3/4 in. (30.5 x 29.8 cm) Drawn in 1960

"In solitude this fear is lived" [2011] For amplified voice, orchestra and "sonic atmosphere". Premiere: March 4, 2011 By American Composers Orchestra, Zankel Hall/Carnegie Hall, NYC.

"If you could live with only one piece of art, what would it be?
Agnes Martin’s minimalist works from the early to mid-1960s. I have a beautiful, well-worn and well-used catalogue from her exhibition ‘KUNSTRAUM München, 20. November – 22. Dezember 1973’ that I look at often. It sits on a shelf in my studio along with a number of art books that are important to me.
In 2011, I realized a long-held dream of composing an orches-tral work inspired by these drawings. For in solitude this fear is lived, I placed the musicians of the American Composers Orchestra around and in the audi-ence, immersing the spectators in the centre of the orchestra to create my ‘sound painting’, beginning with a wash of wind sounds (prepping the ‘canvas’), then creating the ‘drawing’ one note, one stroke, one sound gesture at a time until the living ‘painting’ was completed, breathing and soaring over the audience. It has been played only once. I would love to have it played again."
Frieze Questionnaire: Joan La Barbara (March 2016)

Anemographic

sound: extract from 'The Last Picture Show', dir Peter Bogdanovich (1971)

Wind Rose

Tabula Anemographica seu Pyxis Nautica Ventorum Nomina Sex Linguis Repraesentans (1650) by Jan Jansson or Johannes Janssonius (1588–1664)

"Persistence of Memory", Joan La Barbara (2012)

Persistence of Memory Live in MaerzMusik Berliner Festspiele from Aleksandar Kostic on Vimeo.

"My composition juxtaposed sounds of cataclysmic events, remembered, captured, re-created by instruments, voice and samplers: car crashes, avalanches, severe weather, the crack in the space-time continuum."
Questionnaire: Joan La Barbara, Frieze (March 2016)  

storms

On storm-struck deck, wind sirens caterwaul;
With each tilt, shock and shudder, our blunt ship
Cleaves forward into fury; dark as anger,
Waves wallop, assaulting the stubborn hull.
Flayed by spray, we take the challenge up,
Grip the rail, squint ahead, and wonder how much longer

Such force can last;
from Channel Crossing, Sylvia Plath
  sound extract from 'Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas (2013), dir. Arnaud des Pallieres