Robin Hayward – Stop Time

Robin Hayward plays microtonal tuba in Catherine Christer Hennix's ensemble and Stop Time is his first composition to be released on Important Records.

Stop Time was commissioned for a festival of the same name taking place in Leuven in 2013. It is the first piece to use a subset of the three-dimensional physical version of the Hayward Tuning Vine, invented in 2012, as a musical score. The harmonic space implied within the four cubes contained within the subset, based on prime numbers two (octave, colour-coded grey), three (perfect fifth, colour-coded blue) and five (major third, colour-coded red), is explored by the acoustic instruments and projected via the surround-sound system onto the physical space of the performance area. In tonight's performance, the colour-coding is made explicit through spotlighting each musician according to the colour of the pitch they are currently playing. In the middle of the piece, when the the central black ball is sounded, the lighting therefore momentarily disappears. The idea is not so much to simulate synesthesia as to explore possible interactions between sound, vision, space and time. Harmonic space is projected over time onto physical space, thus 'stopping time'.

The recording and photos are from a performance taking place at De Bijloke, Ghent, in September 2014.