H.P. Lovecraft's "The Terrible Old Man" with Live Original Score - Noah Batten

Music Composed by Noah Batten Adapted from the short story "The Terrible Old Man" (1920) by H.P. Lovecraft Performers: Narrator - Nikolas Labossière ‪@nikolaslabossiere‬ Cello - Mabel Contreras ‪@karolmabelcontrerasjaramil8563‬ Piano - Annie Chen Vibraphone - Jackson Kelly ‪@jacksonkelly9705‬ Percussion - Alex Young & Hugo Cayen String Piano - Helena Cheu ‪@Helena_Cheu‬ Production: Audio Recording - Nikolas Labossière Audio Mixing - Noah Batten Camera - Morgan Lynch & Noah Batten Video Editing - Noah Batten Lighting - Jackson Kelly Special Thanks to Dr. Kelly-Marie Murphy, Edmund Eagan, James Law, Michael McLaughlin, The University of Ottawa, Anika-France Forget, Alan & Sandra Batten, Angela Geleynse, Zachary Greer, Mohammad Motevaselan, Niloofar Radmand, Kristiana Tavityan, Mia Erickson, and Shaun Aitcheson Recorded in Freiman Hall, in the Pérez Building, University of Ottawa Music Composed between Late 2023 to Early 2024 --- Notes from Noah: I like to think of this piece as a live horror radioplay with musical accompaniment. The text is an abridged rendition of a 1920 short story by H.P. Lovecraft. The story centers around a paranoid getaway driver, who anxiously awaits for his thieving associates to return from a solitary old man's mansion. Notably, the score calls for a waterphone. This instrument consists of a stainless steel resonator bowl with a cylindrical neck and bronze rods of different lengths and diameters around the rim of the bowl. Water may be poured inside the bowl to allow the pitch to bend. The rods are often bowed, giving an otherworldly sound. Although you may not be familiar with the waterphone, you have most likely heard it. The waterphone has been featured in the soundtracks of "Poltergeist", "The Matrix", "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", and "Aliens". A sample of a waterphone is used recurrently on Gordon Ramsay’s "Hell's Kitchen" and "Kitchen Nightmares" TV shows. In this piece, the instrument is used to underscore the supernatural elements featured in the story. The instrument used in the performance tonight was actually built by the inventor of the waterphone Richard Waters (1935-2013), which was generously borrowed from the instrument collection of composer Edmund Eagan. The written notation for this piece is unconventional. The score uses very few barlines and allows the ensemble a lot of freedom in the performance of their parts. Developing the interplay between the score and script in a way which would be intuitive to performers was a particular challenge when composing this piece. This was a rare instance in my process where I began writing this piece by hand, rather than in the computer, to make it easier to plan out all the unmeasured notation. I particularly enjoy scoring music for the screen, and I saw this piece as an opportunity to do a film-like score in a concert setting. I’ve been eager to do a project like this for a long time, and it was a great joy to be able to bring it to life. I would like to thank the performers for all their hard work and dedication to this piece. I’d also like to thank Jordan Comeau for performing a guide track of the narration that I used when composing. I’d like to thank Edmund Eagan for all his invaluable film scoring advice that I applied when creating this piece. I’d like to thank the other masters composers for their ideas and suggestions during the writing process. I'd like to thank Anika-France Forget for letting us use her garden hose to film the title card. And I would like to dedicate this piece to my composition professor Dr. Kelly-Marie Murphy. --- Interested In Performing This Piece? Visit my Website to Purchase the Score: https://sites.google.com/view/noahbat... Follow me on Instagram here:   / noahbattencomposer   Follow me on Tiktok here:   / noahbattencomposer