Edward Wright - Music & Sonic Art

28/06/2026

Wow what a review!

https://internationaltimes.it/music-without-walls/?fbclid=IwY2xjawSshz9leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETBqSTgzcENGY3V5MUlzbVpFc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHk-pZaUBoa3UKL9l3XNqcLb7r7VQXC8AGzOTcNXvtNtSiqCz2IAcv_LH3084_aem_QFpmMkAOLHbke9W2kTovTA

Asking for two scoops with no flake requires a willpower I’ve never been able to summon. No-input artist Andrew Leslie Ho**er and violin/modular synth player Ed Wright are obviously made of sterner stuff. No Flake, their latest album playing together as Two Scoops, is an uncompromising search for ...

28/06/2025

A nice review of some noise made a few weeks ago 😀

John Bisset @ Storiel 14.06.25 documents pedal-steel improviser John Bisset’s performance at the Storiel Gallery in Bangor, North Wales as part of his 2025 UK tour. Having headed up north from London, he turned left to gig his way along the M62 corridor and ended up in North Wales, where he encoun...

06/04/2025

Wonderful review from a student!!! (Link in comments) :)

31/03/2025

A bit of a special one for today, Y Bont/The Bridge is a one act opera I was commissioned to compose and conduct alongside with Marian Bryfdir's text and narrative. The video is of a live recording of the first performance (as such there is not much to see for the first couple of mins until the curtain comes up, although there is music!) which took place on this day in 2023. So many amazing memories working with this group of people!

Filmed live at the Ucheldre Centre, Holyhead, on 31st March 2023, this is 'The Bridge' a new one-act opera from librettist/director Marian Bryfdir and compos...

30/03/2025

Drop! is an interactive sound game based around a marble run toy, that I made in 2013 and premiered at the Good Robot Festival on this day all those years ago. The video is a bit more of a "making of" rather than a full demo as you really actually just have to mess about with it in person!

When someone drops a marble (in this case a steel bearing) down the run, it triggers audio samples from the computer. The pieces which trigger the audio are wired into the system so that when the setup of the run is changed, so is the order and timing of the sound, thus making a reconfigurable piece of music and fun!

The music is a mix of 11 short audio extracts. These range from close microphone recordings of marbles doing things in the studio; such as rattling in a bowl, or going down the marble run. One percussive sound has been made by taking the sound of a marble and dropping it on a board, slowing it down four times and then modelling the reverberant acoustic of York Minster around it. Other sounds are more mainstream ranging from FM synthesis (the default setting for all good sci-fi film scores!) as well as a more dance-y sounding loop created in Reactor.

The audio was balanced an mixed in 4channel surround sound to enhance the motion and movement of the tracks. The sounds of a bicycle bell and a duck have been thrown in for good measure.

Things happen in the work when the marble rolls over two pieces of aluminium tape and completes a circuit, effectively closing a switch. With the aid of some home made electronics and an Arduino circuit board-chip housed in an old Chinese takeaway box these messages are sent via USB, luck and faery power, to the computer.

In the computer the interface which de-codes all these signals, brings up pictures of the active part of the marble run and plays back the audio has been written in Max MSP. Hopefully that makes sense for those that want it to, the full code is available on my website

So there you are. An in depth and subtle composition that questions the nature of sequence in music with some technical rough science thrown in...
Maybe sometimes it's more important to have some fun!

Thanks to the people of Hendre Hall and 'The Good Robot' festival.

Drop! is an interactive sound game based around a marble run toy. When someone drops a marble (in this case a steel bearing) down the run, it triggers audio ...

15/03/2025

A bit of audio visual work from the archive today. First premiered today in 2007 Harpset is for sampled harp and animation. Imagine you've got a bit of music (ok a phrase).What if you tried doing what this fractal does with the central square and reduce it in size and move it about.... ok. As the square gets smaller so the phrase gets quicker, and as it gets transferred up or down the visual field so the pitch gets higher or lower, kind of like modern day Sierpinsky fugue (the bloke who invented the fractal pattern). Ok then translate all that physical movement into an 8 channel speaker set-up so that the top of the screen is the front of the sound space and as the image moves left right up or down so does the audio in the hall. Add in video display of how these sounds are being effected and generated in a geometric sort of way and sync it to what is going on. Lie back in a darkened room and enjoy! (this is just a stereo version of an 8 channel surround sound affair but it gives you the idea!)

Harpset for Sampled Harp, 8 channel audio and imageComposition and programming Edward Wright 2007Imagine you've got a bit of music (ok a phrase).What if you ...

10/03/2025

On this day in 2012 this sound/music installation was premiered and would still have not repeated itself by now had we not had to move the speakers a week later!

Who Can Hear The Sea? is a sound installation commissioned by the Bangor New Music Festival. The sea is a major theme of this year’s festival as well as being a fascinating subject for recording. In developing this piece I tried to record the sound of the sea, free from outside influences such as: wind, road noise and sea gulls, but gradually became aware of a number of issues that arise.

Beside the practical issues of trying to find a silent beach on a windless day, with big waves, water by itself makes little or no noise; it is the matter and energy around it, in it, acting on it and contained in it that makes it sonorous. In addition to this there is the dynamic but structured nature of the sea, it is constantly changing, in an incredibly complex, yet ordered way.

Who Can Hear The Sea? Uses recordings of sea waves as its basis and then uses computer processing and techniques such as subtractive synthesis to shape confine and restrict these sounds to create a number of sonic objects or ‘musical’ statements.
These sound objects have then been edited together to create 8 audio loops, the longest of which is 7’02” and the shortest of which is 5’59”. These loops all play simultaneously and repeat as they reach the end of each play through. Thus the different loops move in and out of phase. Not only does this make for a constantly changing piece, it means that just like the sea you can listen to it and hear ongoing similarities but it will never be quite the same again; as for all the loops to come back to the start and line up exactly it would take 1875 years, 1 day, and 16 seconds (roughly)!

Who Can Hear The Sea? is a sound installation commissioned by the Bangor New Music Festival. The sea was a major theme of the 2012 festival as well as being ...

09/03/2025

Wow, first premiered 20 years ago today at Bangor New Music Festival!
(Here is a much younger version of me rehearsing it!)

This piece explores the age old idea of the duet, in this case it is between live violin and a pre-recorded tape part . The source sounds for it were recorde...

04/03/2025

https://circl8radio.com/

04/03/2025

A pleasant suprise Polarites (a piece of music of mine for orchestra and electronics) is being played in full on Chester's very own Circle8 Radio at 9pm this evening!

A DIY webstation, based in Chester, UK, supporting and championing local music and events, as well as North Wales and The mighty North West.