Going about everyday business is sometimes harder than we like to acknowledge. This is a piece for the subconscious. For the delusions that drift through our thoughts as we move from one place to the next… from a hallway to a subway platform, to the subway turnstiles to the street outside. This is a piece for all those crazy urges we get when we feel smothered by a small space or overwhelmed by a large space. Sometimes, we want to scream “Let me out… Now!!” This piece should not give anyone nightmares of these rather ordinary spaces and places that invite delusion. It is a celebration of the artist, the madman, or the dreamer, within us all.

[vi-09]

Let Me Out was realized in 2006 at the composer’s studio and premiered on August 11, 2006 at St Andrew-by-the-Lake Church during the Sound Travels Festival of Sound Art on Toronto Island (Ontario). The piece was commissioned by the Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF) for its programme Kunstradio. The spatialization research for the concert premiere was supported by the Media Arts Section of the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA). Thanks to Charlie Fox for the recording of the empty corridors of the University of Regina (Saskatchewan) during The Art of Immersive Soundscape residency in July 2004 and to Barry Prophet for recording with me similar spaces at the University of Toronto (Ontario) in February 2006, and to Elisabeth Zimmerman from the ORF. Let Me Out is the companion work to Ich will kein Inmich mehr sein, which was commissioned by the ZKM for the trans_canada festival. Special thanks to Sebastian Schäfer for his vocal recordings made for Ich will kein Inmich mehr sein and used as source material for Let Me Out, and to author Birger Sellin for his book Ich will kein Inmich mehr sein and his insights into the autistic mind which is the backbone to both of these works.

Preparation

• July 2004, Charlie Fox • University of Regina, Régina (Saskatchewan, Canada)
• February 2006, Darren Copeland; Barry Prophet, assistance • Faculty of Music – Edward Johnson Building – University of Toronto, Toronto (Ontario, Canada)

Composition

• 2006, Personal studio, Toronto (Ontario, Canada)

Premiere

• August 11, 2006, Sound Travels 2006: Light and Sound, St Andrew-by-the-Lake Church, Toronto (Ontario, Canada)