unspun

"Unspun" (flutes / fixed media) was commissioned by Chenoa Anderson with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts as part of Anderson's "dystonic project”, which involved composing and workshopping flute pieces tailored to playing through chronic injury and illness. I had the honour of working on this project alongside composers Heather Hindman and Dr. Emilie Lebel who were also commissioned to write pieces, as well as to be paired with mentor Amy Brandon through the Canadian New Music Network's ConneXions mentorship program.

“Unspun” is a sonic representation of three of the phases of transforming raw wool into a finished knit piece using a supported spindle. This theme is a counterpoint to our global fast fashion trend where our clothes are made from untraceable materials by strangers, usually living and working in horrific conditions, with no connection to the people who will eventually wear what they make.  The practice of handspinning wool into custom yarn and then creating something stitch by stitch is the antithesis of all this, and a theme that I have been enjoying exploring further in my recent works.

In the first movement, Copper Sky (alto flute, fixed media), a spinner sits down to work with their raw fibre. The fixed media track symbolizes the organic nature of the fibre - wild and colourful, yet soft and grounding. The live flute symbolizes the spinner contemplating and interacting with their medium, echoing and anticipating elements of the fixed media. Copper Sky is the name of the colourway of the batt of wool that inspired this movement. The second movement, The Long Draw (bass flute, fixed media), is a sonic representation of spinning yarn with a support spindle. The long draw is the name of a continuous spinning technique achieved by simultaneously drafting the fibre and spinning it onto the spindle shaft. The fibre being spun for this movement is a beautiful braid of BFL which alternates the colours pink, turquoise, white, and blue. Each colour is associated to different pitches and the movement progresses through the resulting harmonic pattern. The spinning for this movement was done on a Spanish Peacock spalted holly ninja support spindle. The third movement, Canary in Stockinette (c flute), is inspired by a rectangular knit piece that I created from yarn spun in varying shades of different yellow fibre, with bits of sparkle and the odd tuft of blue and red roving. The yellow rectangle is surrounded by a white border, hand spun in white Romney. The live flute plays short, bright, repeated motifs that mirror the pattern of the stockinette stitches in colour, texture, twist level, and fuzz. The flute plays to a media track with amplified knitting and recorded flute tones on all four flutes. The recorded amplified knitting is looped and reversed, resulting in two stitches that are arranged according to the pattern of the physical knit piece.