Stradisphere Film Audio

15/03/2023

https://youtu.be/mwWofOA7X9g

10/10/2022

Within the last ten years Criterion has restored and made available some of the lesser known films of Ingmar Bergman. It is always an indescribable experience to engage this work for the first time from a director who is capable of transcending time.

This weekend I watched two films; The Devil’s Eye and Hour of the Wolf. The film score was notable enough to make comment here; that is, the effect of a score that one cannot recall.

During the former, a scene presents the artist confessing his role in the drowning of a young boy after an ambiguous altercation. After hitting him in the head with a rock, Max von Sydow’s character attempts to bury evidence of the altercation by tossing the boy into the sea who’s head is smothered in blood. Bergman closes in as the boys hair gently rises with trials of the blood until he descends further into the depths of the ocean. Throughout this scene is the gentle crescendo of string fragments sparsely punctuating a drastic silence. As the encounter grows more nervous woodwinds chatter back and forth invoking seagulls gathering, and their insistence breeds an anxiety as it mimics the hunting call of feed time. All of this is underplayed and almost imperceptible, nearly at the periphery of consciousness.

The murder itself is bathed in silence, while the visual element of the film shows our protagonist drunk in passion repeating violent blows offscreen.

It is only when we see the lifeless head of the child descending that the music swells, strings and chattering woodwinds now swirling, and reversed and warped by tape. The effect of such is an impossible dualism that can only be experienced as an observer on the outside — a perspective we too often take for granted that the advent of film has afforded.

This is not music per se, but it’s effect is unparalleled. The swirling of the texture, the crescendos and glissando of the strings, the bickering of the woodwinds in reverse all cause the viewer to psychologically feel as if being pulled downward, correlating to the boy, as well as to feel the raising sense of anxiety and dread washing over the murder. In essence, we feel both of these internal forces manifest in us at once.

The murder itself is not obscene or visually shocking, comparatively so by todays standards. What effectuates all gruesome shock is audible.

It is so simple, but so effective.

The late American film critic James Monaco, as late as 2009 lamented that many directors fail to respect the relationship that film procures between image and sound. My own business partner, and co-founder at Stradisphere today suggested this has much to do with where sound and music fall in the timeline process of film creation. Sound and music is tends to be ‘attached’ to the end, rather than an integral part of the teleology, staging and narrative of the work. I imagine that it extends further than this. Directors have become too comfortable in a role that confuses ‘vision’ with expertise. Film composers should rather be closer in rank to their collaborators.

Budget constraints in a post-covid, Netflix obsessed industry have also aided in the devaluation of the film composer. Intuitive merit and technical expertise have been sidelined by the proliferation of sound libraries and under experienced composers.

It is not to say that an untrained composer is less than a trained composer. There are too many countless examples to prove the opposite to be true; especially as it comes to film. But rather I suggest to elucidate the peculiarity of a repression of what I suspect is much latent genius oppressed under a commodity industry that struggles to accurately identify art from entertainment, vision from expertise and effect from aesthetic.

… And yet, in the earlier days of film where such collaborations were more equally married, we see that it was not only possible, it has a lasting effect whose message is clear and effect is impeccably received today.

Even as film directors perpetuate greatness in their craft, the side of music declines progressively on the whole(many exceptions aside).

An unparalleled form of art is certainly being slowly lost.

03/09/2022

We are busy mapping out the recording on Hendrik Hofmeyr’s latest opera, Sara Baartman. Vibrant, mysterious and engaging, we are looking forward to capturing and sculpting this important South African work for an upcoming album release by Stradisphere records.

03/09/2022

Nearly a month of being sick, I’ve finally emerged for rehearsals for Hendrik Hofmeyr’s latest Opera and Stradisphere’s latest recording project.

11/08/2022

Two concerts of the South African composer Hendrik Hofmeyr were recently held at the Baxter theater in Cape Town. The former focused on chamber works while the latter on lieder cycles. The pieces surveyed decades of the composers development from his student days in Italy until the year of his retirement from his position as the Head of Theory and Composition at the University of Cape Town.

Hofmeyr is one of those rare bred, once-in-a-generation composers whose music seems to perfect genres as it simultaneously ascends and redefines them. It is music that rewards the deep analytical ear just as much as it stirs emotional wells within its audience, juxtaposing the evocatively sexy with the hideous, violent and meditative, sacred and profane.

The elegance and lyricism of the composer’s writing is weaved together with extended techniques that exploit both characteristic and limitations of the sounding bodies of instruments such as to draw poetic energy from the marriage of the old and new. Complex in the most artistic sense, this work is also immediately accessible to most audiences even as it challenges seasoned concert goers.

The music stays in constant dialogue with the past, both playing on the audience’s subconscious expectations for formal closure while deviating, reorganizing or deforming those boundaries with the precision of an architect; The psychological result is a transformational effect where ones proverbial ‘feet’ feel as though they are slipping and as one regains stability, notices the vertically skewed perspective of the structure has shifted around them. Like the sonic representation of an Escher painting, the ear navigates these spaces of complexity in shockingly convincing ways due to the composers total mastery of teleology and design.

At the center of much of this music is piano, and the sophistication and temperance of the writing translates from the score to the ear in detail. Dynamics, articulations, and sensitivity all fuse together in such a deep experience, marked by velvety harmonies, trickling figures, frightening flashes of virtousic passage work, and cascading arpeggios that it would be misguided to call these parts accompaniment.

His gift for voice and text setting is equally mesmerizing and one grasps a sensitive passion and deep knowledge of both Opera and lieder in his work. Of both German and Italian(and Soviet for that matter). The word painting is exquisite, for example, piano figures invoking a rippling breeze through a field of daisies while the voice of the poet describes his experience as a co**se in a grave. Such contrast, such chiaroscuro permeates the composers sensual, dark and endearing style.

Performances by Jose Dias, Liesl Stoltz, Anmari van der Westhuizen, Lynelle Kenned, Ondelwa Martins, Brittany Smith, Minette Du Toit-Pearce, Jason Edward Atherton, Van Wyk Venter and Esthea Kruger brought all the imagination and profundity of this work to vivid realization with immaculate performances.

It is this authors opinion that Hofmeyr is the greatest living South African composer today, and as such an important and vital figure in the history of South African music. Furthermore, in the year of his retirement, and surrounded by a generation of musicians who have studied his pieces, many of whom such pieces were written for, it became obviously apparent for Stradisphere that to curate and produce a definitive collection of recordings of the composers works was imperative. Our aim with such a project is to make this music accessible to international and new audiences complete with additional resources, interviews, analysis’ and critical evaluations of the works.

A project of this magnitude is not easy, nor is it finished in a year or two, but foundations have already been laid for some exciting releases to be announced in time.

10/08/2022

Stradisphere’s maiden project is premiering internationally and has a synopsis in the press the day after a select screening in Cape Town, highlighting composer and co-founder Jonathan M. Blair and artist Mikhael Subotzky.

https://weekendspecial.co.za/epilogue-disordered-and-flatulent/

U.S. Composer Jonathan Blair and South African artist Mikhael Subotzky have collaborated on a project which premiered at the Goodman Gallery in London - Epilogue: Disordered, and Flatulent

06/08/2022

05/08/2022

Intro from the new concerto by Jonathan M. Blair premiering this year. Stradisphere records will be releasing a studio album of the work shortly after.

26/07/2022

26/07/2022

01/07/2022

For the past month we have been laying the groundwork for a company focused in Film Score, Sound Design, and Post Production. Of course everyone involved in this venture has a trove of experience and influence cultivated over decades in the business.

Over the past decade the film industry has fundamentally shifted in how production operates. With audiences shifting from theater experience to home & device viewing options, with the breakdown of the Empirical Hollywood model giving way to more independent collaborations, with the status of corporate investment transferring to community funded projects where the ‘investor’ concerns are more about the reflection of resounding principles than profit margins, we have seen a new economic and cultural participation model challenging the way films, media and art have been produced for nearly a century.

Like any shift of this magnitude, the evolution of extermination has both good and bad effects, and consequently, after observing this decade long shift, there is much to be embraced, modified, corrected, and adopted from both the old and new modes of thinking.

Cape Town, specifically has been increasingly at the heart of this transformation in the industry. Our vastly disparate and multifarious climates provide nearly endless vistas to emulate any geographical location. Our highly trained and skilled artisans, film crews, writers, authors, musicians, animators, sound designers, set designers, and engineers subsume a panoply of quality to rival a world-leading standard; This is the very reason why Hollywood has increasingly and perennially invested in film production in Cape Town. There is no doubt that Cape Town is quickly bearing the recognition of a city known for film production; a persona that will only increase in the next few decades. It is almost impossible to go a week in this town without being held back by a production team as they film a scene against the facade of one of our breathtaking architectural or natural marvels.

The same is true about the musicians who make up our orchestras, opera companies, chamber ensembles, choirs, and our historically informed societies. Our musicians are trained at the most renowned schools from all over the globe, and play through seasons of the most challenging repertoire, supporting virtuoso talent from all over the world. South African film projects attract names like Yo Yo ma to contribute and collaborate on scores. The level of quality in Cape Townian culture is staggering.

That is why we started Stradisphere Film Audio. As a company we aim to be malleable enough to fit the needs of how film makers are making films in their idiosyncratic, multifarious and diverse style, and to provide the highest quality audio and film scores.

In an ever-increasing partnership that currently comprises of an academy award winning post production suite, world-class orchestra, a roster of South Africa’s most prominent session musicians and vocalists, and co-founded by an internationally recognized and critically acclaimed composer and an award-winning, visionary sound engineer with a cumulated experience of over 30 years in Film, Television, Advertising, Concert and Commercial industries, Stratisphere Film Audio was conceived to meet the increasing demands of the rapidly evolving film industry with peerless production quality of the highest caliber at a price that is unparalleled, globally.

In addition to our commitment with modern film music, we are equally interested in preserving and curating the traditions of progressive and historical concert, chamber and art music. At the cross-section of musicology and artistic engagement, Stradisphere is actively engaged in producing the most captivating and important work by progressive and cutting edge composers, ensembles and artists; Works that challenge modes of experience, collaborations with indigenous and ethnomusicological traditions, the avant-garde as well as historical recordings engaged in communal involvement.

Our catalogue is meticulously prepared and presented in limited physical vinyl editions to ensure that the artists work is presented as simply that, sound art. Albums are also available on all streaming services.

Please help us by getting involved, spreading the word, liking our page to stay up to date on our newest releases both album and film, and well wishes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOQ4WtWyBl0