The formal shaping and sound content of 'Valley Flow' were influenced by the dramatic vistas of the Bow Valley in the Canadian Rockies. The work is founded on a basic flowing motion which is stretched to create floating and flying contours, panoramic sweeps, and the flinging out of textural materials. Special attention is paid to creating spatial perspectives - gazing out to the distant horizon, looking down from a height, the dramatic impact of mountain bulks and land masses, and the magnified details of organic activity.

Landscape qualities are pervasive: water, fire and wood; the gritty, granular fracturing of noise-textures; and the wintery, glacial thinness of sustained lines. The force and volatility of nature are reflected in abrupt changes, and turbulent disturbances whose detailed proximity tend to invade the personal space of the listener. (Denis Smalley)

Technical Background

HW / SW: Mac IICI/CX, Lexicon 480 L, Vax/Phase Vocoder, PDP/DMX-1000,
Sounddesigner, Proedit, Prodeck, Samplecell, GSAMX

Denis Smalley (NZL), born 1946, took bis first degree at the University of Canterbury, and achieved a first class honours degree in composition at the Victoria University of Wellington. Awarded a French Government Bursary in 1971, he studied with Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire, and simultaneously completed the Diplome de Musique Electro-acoustique et de Recherche Musicale taught by composers of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales. Having decided to concentrate on electroacoustic music composition, he moved to the University of York, England, where he completed bis doctorate in composition. In 1976 he was appointed Lecturer in Music at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, where now as Senior Lecturer he is Director of the Electro-acoustic Music Studio.