By John Stead.(1999) - first performance

The Age of Spheres is a son et lumiere installation utilising computer data projectors and a multi-speaker spatialisation of electro-acoustic music. The images come from fractal geometries and images of dragonflies (mostly photographed in Kent during 1998). The instrumentation consists entirely of seven Tibetan and Nepalese hand bells. Various computer transformations and extrapolations of the bells have extended the palette of sounds, to include sound complexes and more linear and continuous harmonic fragments of the bell resonances.

The structure of Age of Spheres is derived from the 'Mysterium Cosmographicum' written by Johannes Kepler in 1596. The musical material is taken from his 'Harmonies of the World' in which Kepler formulates the idea that each planetary body has, as part of it's nature, a series of pitches, which form a harmonious whole.

In the 'Mysterium Cosmographicum', Kepler defines the orbits of the Copernican solar system with creative use of the so called 'platonic solids'. These sacred geometric structures, impose a nest of orbits that related to the observations of the movement of the planets, and in doing this, Kepler, who was just twenty-five at the time, felt that he had uncovered the mind of God in the underlying structures of the universe.

As to the images, they consist of fractal geometries visualised and coloured by the computer, and dragonflies. The dragonfly is an insect which has existed for 300million years - the largest (with a wing span of over 70cm.) dying out and re-appearing, in its present form 250 million years ago. After an encounter with a dragonfly at the small hamlet of Blacktoft, on the River Humber some years ago, I have been in awe and wonder of these extraordinary manifestations of life.

C.J.Jung writes: 'Our intellect has achieved the most tremendous things, but in the meantime, our spiritual dwelling has fallen into disrepair. We are absolutely convinced that even with the aid of the latest and largest reflecting telescope, now being built in America, men will discover behind the farthest nebulae no fiery empyrean; and we know that our eyes will wander despairingly through the dead emptiness of interstellar space … in the end, we dig up the wisdom of all ages and peoples, only to find that the thing most dear and precious to us has already been said in the most superb language …'(from Collected Works, transl, R.F.C. Hull, Vol 9, Part 1, London 1959.)

This Electro-Acoustic Ensemble event is funded by Kingston Communications plc. and Kingston upon Hull City Council Leisure Services

I should like to thank the Rev. Paul Burkitt, and the parishioners of St. Marys, Lowgate, Hull, for their help and support.