Je mets mon scaphandre

A concert-length piece for bassoon and ambisonics by British composer John Aulich, written in collaboration with the Irish and Berlin-based bassoonist Olivia Palmer-Baker.

The work explores the theory of the ‘leaky body’ - a concept from feminist theory that challenges the notion of the human body as a fixed object. Here, the built-in spatiality and the ‘leaky’, unstable nature of the bassoon are brought into dialogue with this theory, amplified and translated with live electronics.

This live system benefits from variation: at defined points in the piece, the performer must react live to the electronics, playing musical games and improvising, deciding which pathway to follow depending on what they hear. The concert-length work is immersive, and uses „hyper“ amplification of the bassoon, zooming in to the small details on the instrument and amplifying them not only in volume but in dimension, with the sound being panned around the entire room.