To my father

When I was young, I remember my father telling me about a film which consisted of a sports car driving at incredibly high speeds through Paris at dawn, from the Boulevard Périphérique all the way to the Baslique Sacré-Cœur in around 9 minutes. The film was shot from the front of the car and the soundtrack was the sound of the car’s engine. The film was C’était un rendez-vous shot by Claude Lelouch in 1976.

Much as I enjoyed the soundtrack, I would watch (as a tourist) all these famous Parisian landmarks flying past and wonder about the real soundscape of these places. One Sunday in June 2006 I walked the route which Lelouch’s car takes, recording sounds in various places along the way — some are general soundscapes which reflect the different acoustic properties of the spaces they were recorded in, some are particular sounds (cars running over drain covers, ambulance, street musicians).

I took various ‘restrictions’ from Lelouch’s film:

• Lelouch had only 10 minutes of film in his camera; I limited myself to 1 hour of recording time
• Lelouch’s film was one take only; I would use only sounds from the single sound walk
• Risk — Lelouch had no idea what would be in his way; I had no idea what sounds I would come across.

The piece consists of six ‘scènes’ which are field recordings of particular places on the route. These are interspersed with five acousmatic ‘episodes’ which use material derived from the adjacent scenes.

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scènes, rendez-vous was realized in June 2006 at Studio 116A of the Groupe de recherches musicales (Ina-GRM) in Paris (France) and premiered on October 28, 2006 during the Soundings… festival in the Reid Concert Hall (Edinburgh, Scotland, UK).

Premiere

• October 28, 2006, Soundings… 2006-07 — Weekend 1: Pete Stollery presents…, Reid Concert Hall — Edinburgh College of Art — The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh (Scotland, UK)