Jennifer Lucy Allan
, April 6th, 2021 10:03
Jennifer Lucy Allan talks to the New Zealand born composer about love letters on quarter-inch tape, piano gardens and doll shops, and the physical effects of sound upon our bodies
Annea Lockwood portrait by Sam Green
'For Ruth' and 'Conversations '74' plus A Film About Listening make up part of the bill for this year's Counterflows At Home digital festival which runs for all of April
“Tell me everything…”
“Yes, yes, yes… love!”
This begins with a love story. New Zealand-born composer Annea Lockwood’s most recent composition ‘For Ruth’ is a reply to a love letter on tape her late partner Ruth Anderson made her in 1974, titled ‘Conversations ‘74’. In ‘For Ruth’, their affectionate conversational fragments, loving affirmations and the bubbling laughter of two people giddy for one another are embraced by field recordings of rich birdsong, grumbling frogs and passing cars, as well as resonant vocal intonations, which sound like the tintinnabulation of struck metal. The few complete sentences that surface contain an exchange that is a sort of found poetry on the feeling that the world has become whole through partnership with another person.