Saturday 17th September, 1pm – 6pm
GLA City Hall, The Queen’s Walk, SE1 2AA
Part of Open House London 2016
About the work
City Hall, designed by Foster + Partners, has been the home to the London Assembly and the offices of the Mayor of London since July 2002. Soaring above the main chamber is an open atrium that spans the full height of the building. A 500 metre ramp curves around the inside of the glass walls, giving spectators spectacular views down to the chamber below and across the River Thames. The spirit of openness is at the heart of this building.
In his new Live Music Sculpture, composer Samuel Bordoli will express and explore the design of the building with sound. A musician will be placed upon each level of the ramp where they will form a spatial dialogue with a group of six musicians on the floor of the chamber. The audience will enter the chamber at the top (level 9) and descend downwards along the ramp at their own pace until they reach the assembly floor (level 2).
The musical form will be inseparable from the architectural form, meaning that the composition can only function properly in this building. Certain sounds will become more prominent at different levels of the ramp, meaning that the texture is altered depending on where it is heard from. The spectators will feel as if they are inside the music as it fills the space around them.
The music has been fully notated and composed with the help of an architectural model. As well as relying on an intuitive sense of how the sound will behave, the composer has worked with Foster + Partners’ acoustician, Philip Robinson, to carry out sound tests. Philip has analysed frequencies that behave differently in each part of the space, which Samuel will build into the music. A video and binaural recording of the Live Music Sculpture will be made so that the experience can be replicated as far as possible.
There will be four performances throughout the afternoon on Saturday 17th September 2016 at City Hall during London Open House weekend. This is a rare chance to see the inside of this extraordinary building and experience a brand new musical work inspired by the design.
