O Death Recording Session (May 2009)

In anticipation up the upcoming CD release of O Death, here are some photos me and Ensemble Klang at the recording session which took place in The Hague, NL in May 2009. All photos © Sarah Bettison 2009.

Set-Up

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Extra-Instruments

[Melodica] [Harmonicas]

At the Mixing Desk

Banjo and Piano

Winds

Close-ups

Full Group

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

Post Session

[1] [2]

Me

Some photos of me that aren't completely awful:

Princeton, Novemeber 2005

And again, but this time even more autumnal

With Sarah standing on top of a mountain in New Hampshire

Junk (with thoughts on cinderella instruments)

I have a penchant (some would call it an obsession) with junk percussion and more generally with what could be called cinderella instruments (i.e. instruments that really shouldn't be the belle-of-the-ball but I make them so.) My solo percussion piece Krank is basically all about a big cinderella instrument, but the biggest set-up of found percussion that I've made was for my Soprano Sax concerto Junk that I put together with the help of solo percussionist Diego Espinosa (with thanks to junk/trash sites in The Hague.) Here are some photos of the main percussion set-up:

1) 2) & 3) (with Diego Espinosa)

The Wrench-ophone (TM) is a set of wrenches/spanners mounted in a keyboard-like array in a shopping trolley. With a slightly different design, the wrench-ophone (TM) made its sophomoric appearance in O Death.

1) & 2)

A home-made Steel Drum. This is really only 'structurally' a Steel Drum, the pitches were shaky and the whole thing sounded nasty, Just what I wanted. There are some other bits of junk metal precussion lurking in the picture.

Lastly a couple of photos from the premiere that I just found lurking on my computer:

With Pete (of Klang fame)

With John (of his own fame)