Radio Papesse

The singer is like a prophet, a man who gives voice to the words that you don't have the courage to pronounce. [Antti Sakari Saario]

The work represent a development of fixed-media aesthetic, related compositional techniques and their creative applications, through an experiential encounter with sound.

The pieces aim to create a sense of fluidity of shapes and motion out of clearly defined micro and macro levels blocks of sound, that can be seen as Schaefferian objects sonore. On a poietic level of the compositional process, block structures and dynamic non-linear unfolding of the work has been influenced and informed by diary and sketchbook work, both as praxis and as an area of literary research and inspiration. The concept and praxis of écoute réduite, which originates from the acousmatic tradition and thus links the work to (Greek) mysticism and ociated modes of interaction with sound, has functioned as the absolute origin for the constructions. Through this primacy to the ear mentality as a compositional perspective the composer’s focus lies in most part on the corporeal manifestations of sound and its extension – music, with the desire to bring the perceiver closer to the mystical moment of ‘now’ and thus focus on what is. Sound as an experience, space or an existence. 

For each work the composite spectromorphologies have been sourced, selected, gathered and processed through an experiential encounter with the given (aural) environment, using various fixed media recording and processing devices, both on-location and in studio. This way of interacting with the material and the use of found sound, enforces the fusion of the concepts of handmade and readymade with a nearly paradoxical sense of artisanship. Typically a large number of wide ranging, seemingly unrelated, sources have been used in the works to create a solid whole in type of a composition and process that Saario calls many-to-one. The concepts of rhizome and glitch function as a map, illuminating the local paradigmatic axis, and can thus be used to navigate through the multiplicity of the created sonic structures.

Born in Lahti, Finland, Antti Sakari Saario graduated in Mathematics and Electronic music at Keele University in 1997. He continued his studies in composition under Jonty Harrison at the University of Birmingham - working with Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre ( BEAST ) - receiving his PhD from Birmingham University in 2002 (PhD, University of Birmingham, School of Humanities, Department of Music, 2002).[1] His numerous postgraduate compositions have been performed in a variety of venues and through a wide range of mediums - most notably B-Side (1998) — A Fixed media composition. After a period of experimental work in Norway, Antti Sakari Saario undertook his current teaching post at Falmouth University.