Sound Sequences from Guadarrama(2008)
“Artistic action can spark collective debates and help change everyday reality” José Luis Carles and Cristina Palmese
The theme of the soundscape, in addition to meaning in its dimension of noise and important environmental and social challenge, it has an important cultural and psychological dimension that is not taken into account and that constitutes an important aesthetic and communicative heritage, ultimately linked to its quality of life in our daily lives.
This project tries to collect the values of sounds from the Guadarrama mountain range and has been carried out by the composer José Luis Carles and the architect Cristina Palmese, who have worked across the area during the years 2007 and 2008. These Sound Sequences from Guadarrama are framed in the field of the soundscape and have to do with the sound dimension of everyday life, with its environmental, social, cultural, aesthetic and artistic implications also working around sound memory.
The work has involved conducting sound tours, surveys, interviews, sound recordings and image taking. These elements serve as a reference for the development of a work of an ethnomusicological character and at the same time linked to contemporary sound art and particularly to electroacoustic music. Sonorities typical of the area, from different trades and traditional activities (livestock, forest work, stonework, etc.) are collected here, the sounds of nature, echoes, resounding panoramic sounds, natural sounds and new sounds related to tourism, everyday soundscapes, street environments, terraces, street markets, parties, signs and sound makers (bells, cowbells, machines…).
The results of the project were materialized in a multimedia concert-show with electroacoustic music, audiovisual montage and the presence of live musicians and actors. This show took place on January 26th and 27th, 2008 with the participation of neighboring craftsmen of the cellist Antonio Román and the Cercedilla-Navacerrada choral group directed by Vincente Romaní. All these materials may be used in future educational and artistic activities.
These Sound Sequences from Guadarrama are the result of a project financed, during 2007 and 2008, by the Community of Madrid (General Directorate for Cultural Promotion) with the support of the municipality of Navacerrada, which has made different centers available to the project (cultural, administrative, environmental, educational, artistic…) in which associations, experts, representatives of the various trades and jobs existing in the area (woodcutters, stonemasons, ranchers…) and the neighbors have generally all collaborated.