robin hayward: stop time

Robin Hayward plays microtonal tuba in Catherine Christer Hennix's ensemble; Stop Time is his first composition to be released on Important Records. Stop Time was commissioned for a festival of the same name that took place in Leuven, Belgium, in 2013. It is the first piece to use a subset of the three-dimensional physical version of the Hayward Tuning Vine software, invented in 2012, as a musical score. The harmonic space implied within the four cubes contained within the subset, based on prime numbers two (octave, color-coded gray), three (perfect fifth, color-coded blue), and five (major third, color-coded red), is explored by the acoustic instruments and projected via the surround-sound system onto the physical space of the performance area. In this performance, the color-coding is made explicit by spotlighting each musician according to the color of the pitch played. In the middle of the piece, when the central black ball is sounded, the lighting therefore momentarily disappears. The idea is not so much to simulate synesthesia as to explore possible interactions between sound, vision, space, and time. Harmonic space is projected over time onto physical space, thus "stopping time." The recording and photos are from a September 2014 performance at De Bijloke, Ghent. Wannes Gonnissen: live electronics; Robin Hayward: microtonal tuba, composition; Pieter Matthynssens: cello; Bertel Schollaert: baritone saxophone. Marieke Berendsen: scenography. Tania Kelley: photograph of physical Tuning Vine.