Sarah-Jane Summers: Cross-Pollination & The Immersive Violin

Field of study: Artistic Research

Summers asks the following over-arching questions:

1. What happens when I cross-pollinate between my three practices: Scottish & Norwegian traditional music and experimental music, on fiddle & Hardingfele?
2. Can I create new music that retains traditional functions, whilst assimilating non-functional & non-traditional elements?
3. How can my instrument be amplified to produce a sound with sufficient sonorous power & polytimbral complexity, that is suitable for immersive experiences?
4. Can this newly woven synthesis reflect my identity as a modern-world Norwegian citizen from Scotland?

Summers derives new materials from her practices and develops them into works for solo fiddle/Hardingfele, exploring the resonances between old folk dances & experimental club music. Investigating new methods for amplifying her acoustic instruments, and collaboration with science and technology she will create radically new perspectives on familiar sounds. The music will be inspired by (a) the rhythmic drive, ornaments and melodic language of Scottish & Norwegian traditional music; (b) the liberation of timbre and texture as independent expressive devices in contemporary/experimental music; and (c) club-music’s trance-inducing repetition and physicality of sound.

The study is carried out as Practice-As-Research. Summers examines her processes via an action-research-based feedback loop. The work with amplification is carried out via the Research-Creation method, where art and science/technology are brought into a mutually fuelling relationship.