Project Description
The Remote Ensemble Project was designed and facilitated by composer Sarah Wald in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sarah's aim was to provide an outlet for collaborative music-making during a time when musicians were confined to playing at home. The project began in late 2020 and this website launched on March 21st, 2022.
The project was divided into two main parts. The first part of the process was loosely based on the game “Telephone.” Sarah recorded an original miniature for solo flute and sent it to the next musician, along with instructions for how to answer it (see the document below). The second musician recorded their version and sent it to the next person, along with the instructions (but not the first, original recording). The third musician recorded their version, and so on. The order of participants was determined randomly using a list scrambler.
After Sarah collected this “raw material” from all of the participants, the second part of the creative process was the editing. She chopped up, layered, and added effects to all of the different recordings to create a finished piece, Solitary Melodies.
The instructions that Sarah sent to all of the participants are below. All audio files on this site, including Solitary Melodies, are free to download and use for your own projects—no permissions or fees required. If you do use any of our audio files, please credit the Remote Ensemble Project and the individual participants whose files you use. And if you use our audio for your project(s) and would like to inform us, please feel free to use the contact form on this site! We would love to hear from you, and we would be happy to post or link to your project(s) on this site.
2023 Update: Audio clips on this site have been incorporated into the Museum of Viral Memory's <1st Symphony (The Unfinishable):
https://themuseumofviralmemory.bandcamp.com/album/1st-symphony