[Table 2] A list of what is considered to be Greek culture in sound (S) and imagery (I) as used in my portfolio.

Investigating the impact of Electroacoustic Music in Greek Culture, through a portfolio of Electroacoustic Music works which explore religious and mythological aspects of Greek Culture.

My research explored how different electroacoustic music compositional methods could be implemented in three acousmatic compositions which were related to religious and mythological aspects of Greek culture. 

The links corresponding to my compositions are provided in [Table 1]. 

A list of what is considered to be Greek culture in sound (S) and imagery (I) as used in my portfolio, is presented in [Table 2].

1. Icarus (2014, 7'52, stereo, fixed – media)

https://soundcloud.com/epa-fassianos/icarus

2. Time Travel (2016, 18'32, stereo, fixed – media)

https://soundcloud.com/epa-fassianos/time_travel

3. Land of the Sirens (2017, 27'00, stereo, fixed – media)

https://soundcloud.com/epa-fassianos/lots

[Table 1] Links and alternative playback widgets corresponding to my compositions.

✔ Icarus was a notion to Greek mythology and the myth of Daedalus and Icarus. It includes soundworlds of airplane sounds recorded at Manchester Airport, as well as stone sounds recorded in the studio.

✔ Time Travel includes sounds captured in the interior and the exterior of a Greek Orthodox Church.

✔ Land of the Sirens is based on the mythological adventures of Ulysses in the Land of the Sirens, as described by Homer in The Odyssey. Sound samples from a traditional Greek instrument called floghera were also recorded and used throughout the work.

The composition of these works addressed the following research questions:

1. How can real-world source sound materials be transformed variations into new identities?

2. How can the combination of different aspects of textural attributes – which are present in different overlapped textural layers – lead to the perception of new aspects of gestural motion1 or new ways of identifying specific soundworlds? What impact could this perception have on soundworlds which are related to specific aspects of Greek culture?

3. In which ways can the concept of “cultural identity” be expanded within an acousmatic work?

✔ My research investigated the practicability of diverse electroacoustic music compositional approaches which were applied in a series of works that explored specific relationships between real-world and abstracted sound materials, through the strategic use of pitched, melodic and non-pitched materials (and specific characters and behaviours of those materials) as integral elements in the compositional process. All compositions were related to Greece at many different levels, in direct or symbolic ways. My main aim was to explore all of these different levels in a musical way via electroacoustic music and to present transformed aspects of Greece. In addition, I attempted to explore new electroacoustic music territories by undertaking a journey from real-world instrumental and concrete soundworlds based on aspects of Greek culture (religion, mythology), towards abstract soundworlds.

✔ Real-world soundworlds consist of sounds, spaces and places that can potentially communicate human experiences: familiar impressions, aural images and evocations for the listener. Abstract soundworlds that emerge from real-world ones through various transformation processes also consist of particular sounds, spaces and places which can be very different compared to the ones emerging from real-world soundworlds. Developing innovative techniques and processes that explore the intersections, contrasts, connections and discourse between the two was my main overall aim.

Next