A Beautiful path

A Beautiful Path: Plein Air Composing is a research project by Kate Moore about composing in the landscape where the land is both the atelier of the composer and the stage upon which the composer performs. Over a period of 12 months, Kate is walking from Oss in the Netherlands, all the way to Skellig Michael, Ireland, captured through the lens of visual artist and photographer Isabelle Vigier who joins Kate along the journey. During this long-distance walk, Kate captures the environments and experiences using voice and instruments associated with travelling musicians including the lyre, lute, vielle and violin. The creative process of the composer is revealed by taking it out from behind closed doors of a composition studio. The composer becomes a performer, performing the creative act of composition where the composition studio is a walking path.

This artistic research is about the creative process at the intersection between nature and culture. Outside, where the atelier has no walls, ‘plein air composing’ captures the authentic colours and changing light in the fields and forests directly as the composer is immersed in it. The route itself is a living score, one that depicts music as opposed to a composition that depicts a landscape. Set in motion, the rhythm of steps through an orchestration of evolving ecosystems is a fluctuating sensory and emotive experience as the surroundings change in mood and temperature similar to the experience of listening to music in a concert as it unfolds. In doing so the composer is translating natural ecosystems into the language of music.