Curated by Jesse Budel. Nexus Arts. 1 Sep 2025
The combination of live performance with pre-recorded sound makes for a fascinating program in the first of two concerts, entitled COMA @ Nexus, curated by composer and sound artist Jesse Budel on the theme of acoustic ecology.
Budel has been working in the field of acoustic ecology for several years and undertook his PhD research in this area. It involves the recording of sounds from the environment and the manipulation of these recordings to produce sound art works, which are sometimes accompanied by live performance. In 2024 he won the Independent Arts Foundation’s Award for Innovation for his work.
The concert featured two works, firstly by the duo comprising vocalists and sound artists Georgia Oatley and Margie Jean Lewis, and then by Budel himself. Lewis composed and performed music for the current Art Gallery of South Australia exhibition Dangerously Modern.
Georgia Oatley and Margie Jean Lewis,
Nexus Arts, photo Chris Reid
Their composition entitled Soak comprised a blend of field recordings, mostly taken by Oatley from the Aldinga Beach Conservation Park during her Soundstream Emerging Composer’s Residency, over which they sang, and Lewis played violin. Their live elements responded to and were electronically mediated and mixed in with the field recordings to produce a complex orchestration of sound, such as the wind and waves washing on the shore, together with short samples of their vocal elements that were repeated and layered.
The sound was relayed through a public address system comprising an octophonic array — eight loudspeakers positioned around the perimeter of the auditorium so that audience members hear sounds emanating from all around them.
Being surrounded by these gentle, whispering sounds places the listener in a meditative but attentive state, as you focus on individual sounds and identify their origins. Such sound art recalls the work of the late American composer Pauline Oliveros, who encouraged the practice of deep listening.
Importantly, the use of field recordings draws attention to the environment, and Oatley, who was one of COMA’s emerging artists of 2021 and has an extensive catalogue of work, indicated in her talk that this work was a response to the drought affecting the Adelaide Hills. She also noted the impact of the algal bloom that has infested the waters off South Australia’s coast.
Prior to their performance, Oatley led the audience in a brief vocal work to put them into a suitably receptive state and to show how singing together creates a sense of community.
Jesse Budel, Nexus Arts, photo Chris Reid
For his performance, entitled Sanctuary x Mill, Budel performed at the piano in response to pre-recorded material relayed through the multi-channel, octophonic speaker array, so that there were nine sources of sound altogether — the eight speakers and the piano — each producing discrete sounds.
Budel indicated in his talk that the recordings were sampled from the playing of ‘ruined’ pianos located at the Murray Bridge Piano Sanctuary, which he founded some years ago, and a similar collection of such pianos at the Piano Mill in southeast Queensland which was established by the Clocked Out Duo, musicians and composers Vanessa Tomlinson and Erik Griswold. Both Budel and Griswold contributed to the recording in a musical exchange as part of an international project, the Weathered Piano Exchange.
The Murray Bridge Piano Sanctuary comprises several discarded upright pianos sitting outdoors in parkland and allowed to decay. Depressing the piano’s keys, plucking the corroded strings and tapping the body of such a piano produces sounds reminiscent of a well-maintained piano, but grossly distorted and out of tune. The sound of yellow-tailed black cockatoos, kookaburras and other birds can be heard in the background, bringing ambient environmental sounds into the mix.
In his performance, which comprises four movements, Budel improvised a response to the recorded material on Nexus’s grand piano, performing on the keys, tapping the piano’s case, and using small sticks to strike the piano’s strings directly.
The resulting orchestration of this diverse range of sounds was utterly absorbing, immersing the audience in a sonic world that situates the piano and its life cycle in the living environment. The sound is wondrous, but the message is also clear: the decaying piano may be seen as an allegory for human civilisation, with music as the transient, fragile expression of civilisation, and it obliquely recalls the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi — finding beauty in imperfection and impermanence.
This concert was a delight but also deeply thought-provoking. The use of electronic technology greatly expands the field of musical composition and permits the composer not only to draw on a much wider range of sonic material and effects but also to draw in the symbolism of the sound sources. The use of live, mediated performance together with pre-recorded samples creates a novel musical form that generates a unique aesthetic and enables the composer-performer to highlight important issues. Both works in this concert gently but firmly reminded listeners of the precarious environmental situation confronting us.
These concerts were conducted under the auspices of COMA (Creative Original Music Adelaide), a volunteer-led organisation involving many musicians that fosters the development and presentation of new music in Adelaide. Most of COMA’s events are held at the Wheatsheaf Hotel, but for this series, Nexus Arts has made available its auditorium, which better suits the performance of the compositions in the program.
Chris Reid
When: 1 Sep 2025
Where: Nexus Arts
More info: coma.net.au
The second concert in Budel’s acoustic ecology series will take place at Nexus on 15 September
Jesse Budel, photo Chris Reid
