Graham Bowers
After many years of writing sound scores for contemporary dance, mime and experimental theatre performances, Graham has developed his approach to composition further into a genre of music which is difficult to classify, but which could be regarded as sound theatre. The later musical works are now complete experiences in their own right; they follow a traditional approach to composition, in that they consist of movements, but the movements flow seamlessly into each other creating one continuous piece, usually lasting in the region of 50 minutes. The music is very dramatic and never stands still, constantly shifting in waves of nervous calm and climactic intensity. The tempo reflects the ever changing pace, waiting, tumbling, staggering and racing, carrying the listener through the evolving and extremely emotive sound-scapes. The instrumentation used in all pieces is acoustic, and digitally processed in the studio. This generally consists of saxophone, clarinet, trombone, violin, cello, piano, hammer dulcimer, electric guitar, percussion and vocals, both solo and choral. A vague analogy to his compositional process would be similar to the way Jackson Pollack painted his pictures - an intuitive knowledge and feel for the quality, viscosity, texture and colour of the paint and its application and place within the canvas, in his case, these sensitivities are applicable to sound rather than paint. The layering and balancing of the sounds and their identities/personalities and their place within the overall stereophonic perspective is a vital part of his composition, as it is in any conventional approach, but there the similarities end. Generally speaking there are no melodic themes (perhaps the odd re-occurring motif) to explore or extemporise upon and no conventional consistent time based rhythmical structures. He is, in brief, attempting to create some form of musical experience that is akin to an ever-changing emotive organic living journey.