Public voting has now opened for the 2010 New Music Award and it is possible to do this over the internet or, from Monday 26th July, by mobile phone text.

To see the aroundNorth film, go to http://www.prsformusicfoundation.com/newmusicaward/aroundnorth.htm
or click on the movie image on the post below.  To place an online vote go to http://www.prsformusicfoundation.com/newmusicaward/vote.htm
or click on the image above.

To text a vote by mobile phone, text the number ‘1‘ to 70099.  (Callers from overseas will have to add the appropriate UK dialing code).

Each individual can cast a maximum of two votes – one through the online voting system and one by SMS text message.

For those who would like to comment on the possible significance of the work, there is also the opportunity of winning a state-of-the-art music system.  To qualify post your thoughts here.

The five movies for each of the New Music Award contenders are now online and available for viewing on the PRSF website, where it is also possible to vote for your particular favourite.  The public vote will contribute towards the PRSF judging panel‘s decision  and the final announcement will be made in September.  From July 26th the five movies will also be shown across the UK at ten venues and from this time it will also be possible to text in one’s preference.  The venues will be Belfast Blackbox, Bristol Watershed, Cardiff Chapter Arts Centre, Dartington Hall, Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Arts, Liverpool Bluecoat Arts Centre, London ICA, Manchester Cornerhouse, Nottingham Broadway Media Centre, and The Sage Gateshead.

As part of the New Music Award shortlisting I am now in conversation with production company Kin-Design in order to help promote my proposed aroundNorth project.  We spent today filming in the grounds of Armagh Observatory, and over the next few weeks will prepare the movie for public view.

aroundNorth has been shortlisted for the PRS for Music’s 2010 New Music Award.   Created to recognise and celebrate leading innovators in the UK and provide investment, support and profile for exceptional and pioneering music creators, the award encourages creators to push the boundaries of their artistic practice, extending the possibilities of music regardless of which genre they work in.  It also seeks to raise awareness of the UK’s most innovative music creators in the media and to help them secure the public profile they deserve alongside the UK’s better known creators working in visual arts and media.

aroundNorth is one of the five shortlisted possible winners of the  £50 000 award, the outcome of which will be announced in September 2010.

aroundNorth is a proposed new musical composition inspired by the movement of the stars around the Celestial North Pole for the Armagh Observatory, in Northern Ireland.  Taking the form of a permanent sound installation, the composition will make use of astronomical parameters, such as star size, brightness and distance from Earth, giving voice to the stars and our changing perspective of them as the Earth revolves on its axis.

The composition will introduce its listeners to an orchestra of new and mysterious sounds, as the different stars are given their own voice as musical instruments in their own right.  By translating their spectra into their instrumental equivalents, aroundNorth will be able to call upon a number of new sounding instruments and offer its audience a so far unheard of stellar orchestra.

More than just another new musical composition, aroundNorth will not only be inspired by its subject matter, but will also play in synchronisation with the rotation of the earth and the apparent movement of the stars, thus making a very real connection between its listeners and the wider universe.  As it plays, the work will also provide a first-time experience for many blind and partially sighted people to encounter the beauty and wonder inherent in the stars and their celestial patterns.