In May of 2010 Wallace Hammond, Sound Symposium's Technical Director, musician, composer, and sound man extraordinare was been named the recipient of the 2009 Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council's Patron of the Arts Award.
When people in the arts community heard that Sound Symposium had nominated Wallace for the award, there was an unprecedented outpouring of letters of support for him to receive that honour.
No other person has done more for arts and artists of this province than has Wallace Hammond. Both as a musician and as a technical wizard, Wallace has given generously of his time and expertise to the arts community. For well over 30 years he has been lending -- or renting at levels artists can afford - his massive store of sound and lighting equipment to bands, festivals, and performers.
Imagine a neo-proto-pre-crypto hominid, standing over a kill or a brood. It grunts or howls or whistles or bangs together two rocks or thumps the ground with a cudgel–the more advanced form of pissing on the boundaries of its territory. It might be a lonely sound. What does it mean? “Touch me and I’ll break your face.” “Come on now, touch me, babe. Can’t you see that I am not afraid.” How do others react to it? Verbal communication and nuance follow, slowly but surely.
The Harbour Symphony is the signature piece of SOUND SYMPOSIUM, Composers write a score for ships horns that is played on whatever ships happen be in the harbour that day. This is a a clip from Independence Day by Gregory Michael Hawco.
The Harbour Symphony is original music written for the horns of the ships in the St. John's harbour. This signature fanfare of the Sound Symposium transforms the ships in the harbour into an orchestra on water. Each Harbour Symphony begins with a radio countdown transmitted to the bridge of the ships by the Coast Guard where players stand at the helms of tugboats, trawlers, and ocean-going freighters.
At the signal, a giant, floating horn section reverberates off the Southside Hills and through the streets of old St. John's, echoing the soul of this 500 year old seaport.
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