Composer in Residence for the Arthur C. Clarke Awards

I’m very pleased to announce… I’m the Composer-in-Residence for the Arthur C. Clarke Awards! Very exciting.

You may have noticed the science fiction theme creeping a little into this blog of late (ok. a lot. a whole massive amount), and this is why.

The Arthur C. Clarke Awards 2009 were held on Wednesday 29th March on the opening night of Sci-Fi London Festival

So, why, you might ask, is the role of Composer needed ‘in-residence’ for an awards ceremony… let alone one for the best science-fiction book? Books don’t have scores…

I asked the same question, but it all became clear. As a promotional angle for the website and thus the awards themselves, the Clarke Awards wanted to offer free music downloads of pieces that had a particularly science-fiction bent, with relevance to Arthur’s work.

Originally we’d discussed composing a theme or track for each of the short-listed books… but this became to time-consuming, as I’d have to read all six books (now, I know this might not seem like a lot to you, but, as a busy lady, I read about three pages of a book a night before I fall asleep. It would take me YEARS to get through all six of these hefty tomes 😉 ).

But then, Tom Hunter, the fantabulous chap in charge of running the awards, and has done for the last few years, suggested instead that I perhaps look for inspiration from the great man himself, Arthur C. Clarke.

And so the three pieces were born, based upon Clarke’s Three Laws of Prediction:

1. “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
2. “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
3. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

And from these three pieces of music, I recycled themes, motifs and textures, and developed a 10 minute-long track that played in the theatre until the awards proper began.

Notwithstanding the massive honour to be asked, the pleasure to work with Tom Hunter, the organiser, and the privilege to be inspired by quotes as an homage to Clarke himself, anyone who’s even slightly acquainted with me will probably already know what a self-confessed sci-fi nerdette I am.

Needless to say, I enjoyed the project very much. 🙂

The other ridiculously exciting part of the night was chatting at length with William Hurt (The Village, A History of Violence, Dark City) at the after-show party. How cool is that?

Here are samples of the music: