A Requiem for Edward Snowden

The album download includes the audiovisual piece as a movie file! MATTHEW COLLINGS is a Scotland-based composer. Not only being a solo recording and live artist, he collaborates regularly with artists from all kinds of fields including musicians (e.g. Dag Rosenqvist from JASPER TX and Denovali label mate TALVIHORROS), dancers and filmmakers. He’s responsible for several installations using custom-made software, which have been exhibited at Burning Man Festival in San Francisco or Glasgow's Centre for Contemporary Arts. His work for films includes a specially commissioned live score for Dziga Vertov’s 1929 silent classic, ‘The Man with the Movie Camera’ and an invitation to work on ‘The Invisibles’, a commission from Amnesty International. 'A Requiem for Edward Snowden' is a large scale live audiovisual performance piece that has been performed among others at the Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Art and the Gaudeamus Muziekweek in Utrecht. The piece focuses on a number of themes which are extremely relevant to our lives in the 21st century, based around the actions and decisions of whistleblower Edward Snowden; loss of faith and security, the hacking of digital media, invasion of privacy and personal sacrifice. The documents released by Snowden reveal that we live in a world in which we are totally reliant not just on methods of communication, but on daily routines in which our privacy is completely compromised. The piece explores the consequences of this situation through a combination of electronic sound, acoustic instrumentation and live visuals. The gestures and performance from two live electronics performers, a clarinetist and string section are analysed and interact with real-time visual work by Jules Rawlinson (pixelmechanics.com), exploring the piece's central themes at sonic and visual levels. 'By turns politically muscular and poignantly nuanced, Collings's excellent piece is a heartening reminder of the quality of new music being created and performed in Scotland today' - The Herald Scotland This album constitutes the entire musical part of the performance. However, as the piece was conceived as an audio-visual piece, the visuals are included as downloadable content.