Cathy Peters: Sonata No. 5 'a Climate Of Violence'

Abstract

These sonatas come from a series of five works commissioned in 1996 by The Listening Room for broadcast on ABC Classic FM. They explore ways of using the sampler as a single compositional tool - a digital 'wonderbox' that could be the late 20th century's most significant instrument in that it can be any and all instruments. Sonata no. 2, 'AntiMatter', and Sonata no. 3 for Shakuhachi both use instrumental timbres taken primarily from the Central and South East Asian musical landscape. These instrumental samples have been located in new compositional contexts and reshaped and transformed until, in some cases, they no longer bear any resemblance to the original sound. Sonata no. 5, 'A Climate of Violence' is text-based and uses a range of archival sources and vocal improvisations as the primary compositional elements. Cathy Peters composed and produced the sonatas, with Andrei Shabunov as sound engineer. This is a highly evocative lament on the theme of violence towards women and girls which uses fragments from news reports and personal histories intertwined with vocal and textural improvisations from Annette Tesoriero, a Sydney-based performance artist. As with the previous works, many elements have been transferred to a sampler, allowing them to be 'performed' in real time on a MIDI keyboard, which in this case provided a core soundtrack to which was added some of the complete vocal improvisations and archival material. The work focuses on three Australians - Anita Cobby, Ebony Simpson and Jean Lennon - who were murdered by known and unknown killers; but it is more generally a lament on the climate of violence in which many women today still live.