"Music." (Ibsen House) Stefan Gregory. - Annotation
This post discusses a sound document:
Gregory, Stefan. "Music." Stefan Gregory. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 July 2017.
This source is a collection of sound files created by Stefan Gregory who composed the soundscape for Ibsen House by Simon Stone, and it is a page included on his main professional website. Gregory is an Australian Composer who creates scores and soundscapes for theatre, dance performances, and short films. Performed in the Cour du Lycée Saint-Joseph in Avignon, Ibsen House had a mainly electronic soundscape—save the sounds of the house spinning, the singing, and the wind—that unfortunately is not yet available on his website. However, I personally found that his work for the 2014 Toneelgroep, Amsterdam production of Medea labelled under “electronics”, has a similar sound and feel to that of Ibsen House. By similar sound and feel, I mean that both productions were highly focused on building and keeping tension, incorporating otherworldly sounds through long alternating vibrations of notes, the incorporations of ringing, low bass sounds, clashing tones, and an overall melancholic feel.
This website is an excellent source for my research on sound designers of the Festival D’Avignon because it gives access to a professional composer’s sound files from previous shows that vary in the type of sound used (voice, orchestra, string quartet, wind quartet, electronics, string orchestra, etc), and includes an extensive catalogue of the artist’s previous works giving the impression that he is highly sought after. It also includes a short bio of the artist, some of the short films that Gregory has worked on previously, and is a convenient location for anyone to stream or purchase his works.
Limitations of this source include the fact that listening to the soundscape alone is not the same as listening to it within the performance text itself. For there is no way to fully feel the symbiotic relationship between sound, the space, and the bodies on and off stage. Furthermore, the digital sound files also do not include the extra factors that come into collision with a soundscape especially when the performance takes place outside like the production of Ibsen House. Even when the sound files for this show are placed online—perhaps after its run has finished—it will not include the wind that was present during the night of the performance on the 15th of July, 2017 or the voices of the actors and the sounds of their movements.
