Recorded phone calls express a story of resilience
The City of Ballarat has released the results of its much anticipated COVID-responsive project, 1300 ROAR – a finely crafted piece of music.
Designed to assist the community emotionally manage the impact of COVID restrictions, residents were encouraged to dial into a hotline to express their emotions.
Those feelings were then transformed into a specially composed piece of music written and produced by local composers, internationally recognised Rae Howell with support from emerging composer Brannoc Whetter.
1300 ROAR was developed as part of the City’s ongoing commitment to supporting the arts and culture sector as well as integrating creativity into the City’s response to recovery from the pandemic.
The resulting piece of music titled ‘In So Many Words’ has been described as wistful, hopeful and emotional, capturing the sense of longing to return to the ‘normal’.
The composers faced the challenge of jointly composing a piece of music from supplied sound files of phone calls. With Rae marooned in the UK due to COVID-19 restrictions and unable to return to her native Ballarat, also meant they had to work in different time zones.
The composers did not listen to the phone calls, instead processing the sounds to make the identities and language of the contributors unrecognisable. But some sounds stood out -like the recorded sound of a single person walking which became an integral part of the percussion.
“My impression from the outset was that this was going to be an intriguing project, something I could encapsulate musically and meaningfully,” Rae said.
“What an honour it is to musically interpret the anonymous voices of the Ballarat community. Their concerns, feelings, emotions, and silent footsteps during such a difficult time.”
Brannoc believes allowing people to express themselves in any way they wished without inhibition, was cathartic for many. “I just hope the composition will help ease the discomfort of so many closed doors,” he said.
Residents were able to call the hotline for a few weeks and were provided with an opportunity to connect to Lifeline should they need to speak directly to a person about what they were feeling.
The 1300 ROAR piece will be included in the Be_Hear/Now. music festival on 13, 20 and 27November 2020.
