In early 2017, during a residency at the Holst House in Aldeburgh (England, UK), I started work on a new compositional method in which materials were joined together in a sequence, or chain, and then rotated around a central axis. This method allowed me to work with a selection of disparate materials whilst retaining a sense of continuity in terms of their overall behaviour. Initially, the method was very slow, and only allowed me to work with granular materials.

During a residency in 2018 at Mise-en_Place Bushwick, Brooklyn (New York, USA), I discovered a similar method for rotating sets of sustained materials, and this enabled me to continue working on the piece. Helix was further developed, later in the same year, at the studio of Sydney Conservatorium (Australia).

The title and form of the piece reference the method of working.

[vii-22]

Helix was realized in 2018 at the studio of the Holst House (England), Mise-en_Place Bushwick (USA), and Sydney Conservatorium (Australia) and premiered on October 7, 2018, during The Fourier Festival in Vienna (Austria). Under its working title Circle of Fifths, Helix was awarded the 2nd prize ex æquo at the >SYNC.2018 International Competition of Electroacoustic Music and Multimedia (Yekaterinburg, Russia, 2018).

Composition

• 2017
• March 2018
• July – August 2018
• September – October 2018, Sheffield (England, UK)