The idea behind this work stems from a poem by Roberto Bolaño describing a night motorcycle journey across the Mexican desert. The piece explores the nocturnal sonic landscape of urban and rural locations and is structured as a sonic journey exploring real and imaginary soundscapes related to various stages of the trip. The work was composed mostly using field recordings captured in rural public roads in the North West of England and synthesized rhythmic sequences generated using gamelan samples. This piece was composed at the Visby Centre for Composers in Gotland, Sweden.

Night Study No. 1 was awarded the 1st prize in the Musica Nova 2013 International Competition of Electroacoustic Music (Prague, Czech Republic).

Premiere

• November 9, 2013, The New Symposium of Acoustic Ecology, 3 Slip — The Historic Dockyard Chatham, Chatham (England, UK)

Awards

• 1st prize, Category A (fixed medium), Musica Nova 2013, Prague (Czech Republic)
• 2nd prize, Computer and Electronic Music, Computer Space 2013, Sofia (Bulgaria)