The Colour of Distance is an autobiographical journey from London to the Outer Hebrides explored through a unique & original combination of symphonic music and natural sound lasting over an hour in duration.
In it the audience travel through a 3 Dimensional space where the music forms the landscape within which the natural sounds emerge and dissolve around them as the journey unfolds. Whilst the natural sound contained within the score evokes the landscape, so the music itself is an expression of my own experience of these contrastingly different and beautiful environments.
Amidst the raucous cries of market traders in London's Soho or listening to the plaintive call of a Golden Plover on a windswept mountain, each individual will ultimately create their own vision in response to the immersive Surround Sound audio experience.
The symphony is introduced by actor John Hurt reading the haunting poetry of John O'Donohue the Irish philosopher and poet . It is performed by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland under the baton of its principle conductor Gerhard Markson. The natural sound was specially recorded by award winning Chris Watson (BAFTA Best Sound David Attenborough's "Life of Birds") and Geoff Sample (Collins Bird Guides).
The Colour of Distance is an evocative synthesis of sounds and orchestral music facilitated by techniques at the cutting edge of technology. The work was mixed in both stereo and DTS 6.1 surround sound at Abbey Road Studios, London.
John O’Donohue on the Colour of Distance
(Philosopher/Poet whose work “Eternal Echoes” was the source of inspiration for John Barry’s last album by the same name.)
Music is the most ancient language. It is the perfect sister of silence. It brings to the surface the worlds that live deep within the silence. There is some strange sense in which the music that arrives to the surface to claim our hearing has undertaken a long voyage to reach us. Like a well within a mountain, it has voyaged long in the unseen, unknowable darkness; the stream of music that appears has a hidden memory of which we are unaware. It is as though the voyage through that secret night has sharpened and clarified its resonance. When it surfaces, it is immediately able to claim us. This has been my experience with Dominic Crawford Collins’ music. There is something breaking the silence here that has been coming towards us from the great distances. It is a music full of the journey of narrative. On its voyage, it evokes the soundscapes of its own origin. It evokes them with a sureness and depth. And with each curve in its narrative, it enters its own memory with such ease and elegance. I hear in Dominic's music the perennial rhythms of the ocean. Time and again, it brings us back to this most trustable and primal of rhythm contours. As befits a wonderful narrative structure, the music enfolds the voices and sounds of the different landscapes. There is the harsh cacophony of London and City streets and then the balm of wistful, elegant long chords that restore us to the dream of the pastoral. T.S. Eliot said: poetry like music should communicate before it is understood. As a poet, it is such an exciting task to be collaborating with Dominic in this interplay of music and poetry. It is exciting to allow the music to evoke the words and images in a rhythm that is akin to itself.
Chris Watson - Sound Recordist
(BAFTA Award Best Sound David Attenborough’s Life of Birds)
The bubbling display flight of the curlew is one of the defining sounds across our upland areas in Spring. Yet not all curlews sound the same, like humans they have dialects and like performers some sound better than others.
That was one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of recording for "The Colour of Distance" - to gather a collection of very special bird songs and other wildlife sounds that evoked and recalled particular themes and memories for Dominic's composition. "The Colour of Distance" is a remarkable personal journey, but one which will strike chords in all of us. The wildlife sounds blend into a beautiful and dynamic harmony with the rest of the music so we hear the starlings, plovers, swifts, wind, rain, thunder and the City as if we were there - stimulating powerful memories and images
The music also helps release the locations to speak for themselves. The listener is bathed in the subtle ambiences, atmospheres and perspectives that characterise each of the habitats. Distant oyster catchers call across a Hebridean lochan, red throated divers 'chuckle' and loop overhead and we are serenaded by the silver songs of skylarks modulated by the soft tones of marram grass.
I recall fixing my microphones by the shore on the Western coast of the island of Coll one evening in late May. The arctic terns, rock pipits and ringed plovers that I recorded there are now featured along with the music and that unique combination literally sings with a new life of its own. "The Colour of Distance" was a unique opportunity and I can take great pleasure in re-living those experiences from the CD.
(Philosopher/Poet whose work “Eternal Echoes” was the source of inspiration for John Barry’s last album by the same name.)
Music is the most ancient language. It is the perfect sister of silence. It brings to the surface the worlds that live deep within the silence. There is some strange sense in which the music that arrives to the surface to claim our hearing has undertaken a long voyage to reach us. Like a well within a mountain, it has voyaged long in the unseen, unknowable darkness; the stream of music that appears has a hidden memory of which we are unaware. It is as though the voyage through that secret night has sharpened and clarified its resonance. When it surfaces, it is immediately able to claim us. This has been my experience with Dominic Crawford Collins’ music. There is something breaking the silence here that has been coming towards us from the great distances. It is a music full of the journey of narrative. On its voyage, it evokes the soundscapes of its own origin. It evokes them with a sureness and depth. And with each curve in its narrative, it enters its own memory with such ease and elegance. I hear in Dominic's music the perennial rhythms of the ocean. Time and again, it brings us back to this most trustable and primal of rhythm contours. As befits a wonderful narrative structure, the music enfolds the voices and sounds of the different landscapes. There is the harsh cacophony of London and City streets and then the balm of wistful, elegant long chords that restore us to the dream of the pastoral. T.S. Eliot said: poetry like music should communicate before it is understood. As a poet, it is such an exciting task to be collaborating with Dominic in this interplay of music and poetry. It is exciting to allow the music to evoke the words and images in a rhythm that is akin to itself.
Chris Watson - Sound Recordist
(BAFTA Award Best Sound David Attenborough’s Life of Birds)
The bubbling display flight of the curlew is one of the defining sounds across our upland areas in Spring. Yet not all curlews sound the same, like humans they have dialects and like performers some sound better than others.
That was one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of recording for "The Colour of Distance" - to gather a collection of very special bird songs and other wildlife sounds that evoked and recalled particular themes and memories for Dominic's composition. "The Colour of Distance" is a remarkable personal journey, but one which will strike chords in all of us. The wildlife sounds blend into a beautiful and dynamic harmony with the rest of the music so we hear the starlings, plovers, swifts, wind, rain, thunder and the City as if we were there - stimulating powerful memories and images
The music also helps release the locations to speak for themselves. The listener is bathed in the subtle ambiences, atmospheres and perspectives that characterise each of the habitats. Distant oyster catchers call across a Hebridean lochan, red throated divers 'chuckle' and loop overhead and we are serenaded by the silver songs of skylarks modulated by the soft tones of marram grass.
I recall fixing my microphones by the shore on the Western coast of the island of Coll one evening in late May. The arctic terns, rock pipits and ringed plovers that I recorded there are now featured along with the music and that unique combination literally sings with a new life of its own. "The Colour of Distance" was a unique opportunity and I can take great pleasure in re-living those experiences from the CD.
