The Water Vessel – music from the film (2012)

for Bb clarinet, 1 percussionist: 3 Southeast Asian gongs, 1 water gong, marimba, darabuka (Turkish goblet drum) tapan (Macedonian double-sided drum), bongos

duration: 12′ 43”

The Water Vessel (2013) DVD film and music from the film directed and produced by Iqbal Barkat and Vincent Tay. Music performed and recorded by Ensemble Offspring (Claire Edwardes, and Jason Noble) 8 September, 2012 University of Western Sydney Performance Space Kingswood, NSW.

Video sample:  The Water Vessel – music from the film

About the filmscore

The Water Vessel was a collaborative project with Singaporean-Australian director Iqbal Barkat that draws on South-East Asian and Arabic references significant to the director’s migrant cultural background in South-East Asia. The Water Vessel score evolved using dissonant sonorities. The music is rooted on a thriller-based tension that is interlinked to the film’s themes of memory, remembering and death. Tension develops in each theme and leads to unity. This tension operates through juxtaposition of minor-major seventh chords, chromaticism, rhythmic development, and extended techniques. In retrospect to the film’s Arabic and South-East Asian cultural settings, this tension is enhanced through the nawa athar makam and miyakobushi pentatonic minor scale.