A Beautiful Path: Plein Air Composing
Concept, sound installation and composition by Kate Moore
Photography and visual direction by Isabelle Vigier
A Beautiful Path: Plein Air Composing is a research project about composing in the landscape where the land is both the atelier of the composer and the stage upon which the composer performs. This research period allows the composer to explore the creative process through writing, composing, improvising and documentary in dialog with nature and the environment whilst walking long distance routes carrying musical instruments. Inspired by Vincent Van Gogh and other painters and writers such as Walt Whitman, who drew direct inspiration from nature as they painted and wrote outside, the composer seeks to create work that embodies the energy and life force of nature itself.
Artistic investigation:
The creative process of the composer is revealed by taking it out from behind closed doors of a composition studio. The alchemy of moments wherein nature informs an inspired idea translated into music and the moment wherein the idea is performed is placed under the microscope, as the drama of bringing a composition to life unfolds. The composer becomes a performer performing the creative act of composition where the composition studio is a walking path.
Music is a journey, a journey too is music.
This is artistic research about the creative process and the intersection between nature and culture. The composer is a walker composing a track through the land. The process of designing a walking route is guided by the same principles as that of a musical composition. Outside, where the atelier has no walls, plein air composing captures the authentic colours and changing light in the fields and forests directly as the composer is immersed in it. The composer absorbs the energy of the outside making living breathing compositions based on the experience of being outside and the adventure of discovering places and the history and ecology of each place that sparks inspiration and sets off a thought process that turns into creativity. The route itself is a living score, one that depicts music as opposed to a composition that depicts a landscape. The walking track is a continuous but ever-changing line through places, evolving from the point of origin to its destination. Set in motion, the rhythm of steps through an orchestration of evolving ecosystems is a fluctuating sensory and emotive experience as the surroundings change in mood and temperature similar to the experience of listening to music in a concert as it unfolds. In doing so the composer is translating natural ecosystems into the language of music. The composer becomes a sounding board for nature.
2019 Song of the Ox December 25- February 2 Oss to Cork and Kildare Ireland – overland route
https://ludwiglive.nl/project/waterwalks-2-song-of-the-ox/
(copyright: Kate Moore 2022, all rights reserved)
Supported by:
Movement Exposed Gallery
Gaudeamus Festival
Amsterdam Fonds Voor de Kunst
