Sarah Westwood
Sarah Westwood
I use memory and intuition as a source for my music, and am drawn toward mixed media/interdisciplinary projects, for dance, video, theatre, installation or concert works. I make both acoustic and electronic music, sometimes incorporating found objects and sounds. In my current research practice, I use the memory of composing for dance as a compositional process. This feedback results in a memory of a memory for new compositions ...
​
​
Sarah Westwood
composer//sound artist//musician
I use memory and intuition as a source for my music, and am drawn toward mixed media/interdisciplinary projects, for dance, video, theatre, installation or concert works. I make both acoustic and electronic music, sometimes incorporating found objects and sounds. In my current research practice, I use the memory of composing for dance as a compositional process. This feedback results in a memory of a memory for new compositions ...
​
​
Sarah Westwood
composer//sound artist//musician
SUTURE
for solo cello and live electronics
*possible triggers - illness and trauma*
​
Early on, when I started thinking about this work, I was looking at the meridian lines of a person, in particular the heart protector (Pericardium) which acts as an imaginary gate around our hearts. On a physical level, the pericardium is a double-layered sac of fibrous tissue that envelops the Heart. The space between these layers are filled with serous fluid that protects the Heart from external shock or trauma, and lubricates to allow for normal heart movements. Through acupuncture it is believed the meridian lines can be strengthen.
It's likely I will come back to this idea again for another piece, as I also started to reflect on another concept as well. Due to the coronavirus, the deadline for composing had been pushed back many, many months. I could have stuck to the original deadline but I wanted ideas for this work to fully saturate.
As part of a PhD reading group, I had been researching on the chaos narrative; where stories, often based on illness or trauma, do not necessarily follow a linear trajectory, where the world is un-made. These stories trace the edges of a wound, and each narrative is unique to the individual. Most story tellers are not able to pinpoint where the illness started, or indeed where it will end. Without ''.
Afterwards, I reflected on my earlier research on the heart meridian, and decided for this piece that the events within the piece havn't quite healed, that the concept was still un-made, whilst at the same time still possible to tell a story.
I wanted to co-mingle this concept together with the ideas I made on the meridian lines within the body, to make something which was reflective yet immediate, fragile yet strong. The imagine that came to mind was a wound that had not quite healed, which led me to term Suture, meaning to stitch together, in particular to hold together the edges of a wound.
​
The piece is for cello and live electronics
​
cellist Ivana Peranic
electronics Sarah Westwood
​
Performances:
​
WP: 01/10/21 Ivana Peranic @ St Luke’s Church, Brighton
​
9/10/21 Ivana Peranic @ St Mary coffee concert, Stafford
​
