Reimagining Beecroft: The spatialization of archival audio
Date
2025
Authors
Dunn, Kian
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Publisher
University Of Victoria
Abstract
Norma Beecroft, a Canadian composer and broadcast host, composed many pieces that pushed common conceptions of concert hall performance. By spreading loudspeakers across the concert hall she accompanied acoustic instruments with spatial electronic elements. Now, with the development of spatial audio technology, we are given the unique opportunity to realize these pieces in modern spatial formats. Recently the University of Calgary unveiled an extensive archive of Beecroft’s original source material accompanied by personal notes, providing profound insight into her process as well as the material required to faithfully recontextualize her pieces. Through contact with David Jones, lead librarian of the Norma Beecroft collection at UofC, I was granted access to these materials. With the goal of spatially modernizing “Amplified String Quartet with Tape” (1992), one of Beecroft’s pieces, this project examines and details the process of spatialization holistically.
Description
Keywords
spatial audio, binaural audio, archival audio, audio engineering, Norma Beecroft