For Instrumental Sextet

The instrumental sextet Shadow D-Zone was commissioned for the Seymour Group Ensemble by its Director, Vincent Plush, who conducted the first performance in Sydney in March 1978.
It was the first substantial work Edwards composed after a silence of several years and is stylistically incompatible with the dense complexity of some his earlier work.

The distinctive sound-world of Shadow D-Zone – the title remains a mystery – is stark, remote and evanescent, as if ready, at any moment, to retreat into silence. Every detail is wrought with infinite care, and although the connection between sequences of events may at times appear tenuous, there is a strong sense of logical inevitablility in the overall design.

Edwards, however, has suggested that the ideal state of mind for the listener should be one of calm intensity, with attention focused on each detail as it occurs, instead of projecting the mind back and forth in search of structural associations.

This ‘contemplative’ mode of listening would seem appropriate to a quiescent musical aesthetic which, unlike most of Western Art music, is not concerned with manipulating time for dramatic or expressive purposes and which, as the composer has revealed, has its origins in the temporal distribution of sounds in nature.

listen:

Shadow D-Zone