Killing Time

Jobina Tinnemans’ Killing Time was commissioned by MATA Festival New York, a festival for young composers founded by Philip Glass, Eleonor Sandresky and Lisa Bielawa. It was first staged at Roulette, Brooklyn (2013).
The MATA team put out a call on social networks, and members of the knitting community in New York and beyond were involved. Back in Jobina’s adopted home of Pembrokeshire, knitters helped experiment and try out the purpose-built computer interface designed for Killing Time. In contrast to the usual solitude that accompanies composing, Jobina’s search for organic sounds and timings leads her to work with non-musicians; it becomes a social experience.

“Known for her work with concrete sounds, Dutch-Welsh composer Jobina Tinnemans follows the lead of the late Cornelius Cardew, incorporating non-musicians into a new music context. Her MATA commission, Killing Time, is a concerto grosso for solo knitters, instrumental ensemble, and a ripieno orchestra of knitters, visualizing the passage of time through its trace in fibre.” – MATA

For Sheffield Fringe, Jobina will stage a specially adapted performance of the original New York concert. Reminiscent of a pop-up book, Sheffield knitters will play live the knitted electronics parts to the filmic documentation of the New York performance.

jobinatinnemans.com

Killing Time | Jobina Tinnemans | 2013 |

“I often include non musicians to be part of my ensemble, who, by their activity, create a rhythm or sound secondary to their action, for the particular timing it generates. I currently live in Pembrokeshire and for this work I approached its majestic coastal soundscape as an education in timing of my music. In order to keep the timing of a field recording alive and natural – since it’s a document, much like a photograph is – I dissected the recording of a flock of arctic terns into single calls and turned them into a software instrument to be live reconstructed again, back into a flock of birds, at the MATA concert in New York. The sound segments needed to be triggered in a nonlinear way and I used 5 knitters knitting with prepared knitting needles to act as a cloud-like sequencing sampler. Which resulted in the electronics part of the piece being conducted. Performed by members of an ensemble consisting of both conventional instruments and knitters. Similar to a conventional instrument, the audience witnessed a physical presence of an electronic sound by its performer.” -JT