A Bristol & SW-based team is up for 'the Turner Prize for New Music' - the PRS Foundation New Music Award for £50,000.
The team is Marc Yeats (contemporary composer), Ralph Hoyte (poet) & Phill Phelps (coder). They are SATSYMPH, a satellite symphony.
The contemporary music/poetry fusion symphony delivered by iPhone and responsive to people's movements in physical space is set to revolutionise the way music and poetry is composed, delivered and experienced. This is also the first time in the history of the award that a poet has been short-listed. There are 5 proposals in the running and SATSYMPH needs your vote in order to make our proposal a reality and bring this major award home to Bristol & the SW!
To learn more about SATSYMPH click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LenRR0b93Ws
SATSYMPH, a ‘satellite symphony’ using context-aware media is one of the five entries in the running to win the ambitious PRS for Music Foundation New Music Award. SATSYMPH, a collaboration between South West-based composer and artist Marc Yeats, poet (and concept-originator) Ralph Hoyte and coder Phill Phelps, is a multi-facetted contemporary music and contemporary poetry sound world triggered by satellites depending on the direction in which the user moves. The piece allows people to create their own contemporary symphonic experience through an iPhone app.
The New Music Award’s prize money of £50,000 makes it financially more significant than both the Mercury and Turner Prizes and underlines the PRS for Music Foundation’s long-standing commitment to stimulating the creation of new music across all genres. As well as offering vital financial support to new music creators, performers, promoters, producers and organisations, the PRS for Music Foundation challenges established views about creative music-making in the UK and works to raise the profile of music innovators.
This year’s judging panel includes artist Martin Creed, composer and pianist Michael Finnissy, pianist and conductor Joanna MacGregor, and music journalist Paul Morley. The panel will be responsible for choosing a winner from amongst the five new musical ideas which will be announced on 16 Sep 2010.
For the first time this year, the public will be able to watch films about the shortlisted entries and vote for their favourite idea to be developed and realised by the end of 2011. (The public vote counts as one judge.) The SATSYMPH team consider that a win will give context-aware media another boost to really push this technology over the threshold to wide public interest and acceptance.
Marc Yeats, Ralph Hoyte and Phill Phelps said: "What is music? What is poetry? It's hard to believe that we are now so close to realising SATSYMPH. We feel as if we are riding the crest of a technological wave that will create a totally new paradigm of what music and word-music fusions are, how they are created and how they are experienced. SATSYMPH offers that rare opportunity to move one's work into a new arena - to the next level of innovation. We can't wait to get cracking."
TO VOTE FOR SATSYMPH visit: www.prsformusicfoundation.com/newmusicaward Please note: If you do no to wish to vote online, an alternative voting system via mobile phone texting will be up from 12 July.
According to Sally Taylor, Chair of the PRS for Music Foundation, this year’s shortlist is arguably the boldest and most exciting yet. Just as the Turner Prize makes people talk about art, we hope that this year’s New Music Award will stimulate debate and draw attention to the wide range of creators who are pushing the boundaries of new music in the UK, Taylor explains.
Previous winners of the award are The Fragmented Orchestra in 2008 and Score for a Hole in the Ground in 2005 by former Pogue Jem Finer.
