The Post Truth Pleasure Garden

For bass Flute, bass clarinet, violin, viola, percussion, 2 voices, electric guitar, electric bass and electronics. You can use the MaxPatch provided (created by Stuart James) or create your own software to realise the score. Commissioned by Ensemble SuperMusique, Montreal, Canada. PROGRAM NOTE “More than 30 years ago, academics started to discredit “truth” as one of the “grand narratives” which clever people could no longer bring themselves to believe in. Instead of “the truth”, which was to be rejected as naïve and/or repressive, a new intellectual orthodoxy permitted only “truths” – always plural, frequently personalised, inevitably relativised. All claims on truth are relative to the particular person making them; there is no position outside our own particulars from which to establish universal truth” (Andrew Calcutt, 2016.) Using this statement as a starting point, The Post Truth Pleasure Garden explores the concept of ‘truths’ through the sampling and reversioning of two acoustic instruments in the ensemble. The grand narrative is destroyed, a new orthodoxy created and everything you hear is relative to the people listening. The words sung state “Australia now ignores laws of basic #HumanRights ” This is a quote from former president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs, at an oration in 2017. She notes that “the idea of alternative facts which had credibility has created an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ world where words mean what we choose them to.” PERFORMANCE NOTES Voice 1(pink): dotted line indicates a.m. radio tuned to static. Lines are simple tones without vibrato Voice 2(purple): dotted line indicate a.m. radio tuned to static. Lines are simple tones without vibrato. Bass Flute (red), dashed line flutter toungue. Bass clarinet (green), dashed line, deep gurgling sound. Violin (blue), dashed line extra bow pressure. Viola (orange), dashed line extra bow pressure. Guitar (blue), dashed line is distorted sound. Bass (deep purple), dashed line is distorted sound. Percussion (yellow): four ...