Lesley Hinger: Bleary

(Submitted by ISCM – CANADIAN SECTION)

Lesley Hinger (b. 1983 in Canada) writes music that shimmers and glows and floats and crunches and spins out, and does other things too. Her works have been performed and workshopped across North America and Europe by various ensembles including the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Arditti String Quartet, Sound Icon, Land’s End Ensemble, Vertixe Sonora, Ensemble Resonance, Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, L’Orchestre de la Francophonie, Ensemble l’Arsenale, Strata Ensemble, the Violet Collective, and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

Her works have been showcased in numerous festivals including Third Practice (Virginia), the National Arts Centre Summer Music Institute (Ottawa), the Composit New Music Festival (Italy), the Strata Festival (aka Sask New Music), the Toronto Creative Music Lab, New Music Edmonton’s ‘Now Hear This’ Festival, at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and as a soundtrack to a haunted house at École Westlock Elementary.

Lesley lives in Calgary AB, and received her Doctorate in Composition from Boston University in 2014, studying under Joshua Fineberg. She also has her Bachelor of Music in Composition from the University of Calgary, and Masters of Music from the University of British Columbia, and is the co-founder of the Boston-based Acoustic Uproar concert series.

Bleary for piano trio (2018) began as an exploration of the overtones that exist within a single, strummed electric guitar string, and how those overtones change as the sound is run through different amplifiers with varying degrees of distortion. Over time it has transformed into a simple heartbeat-like rhythmic gesture that is slowly built up and deconstructed alongside shifting timbres and colourful noise. The piano part requires the use of an EBow, a hand held inductive string driver, which is more commonly used with guitar and can be purchased at stores that carry guitar and sound-related gear.