With a career spanning more than half a century, Karlheinz Stockhausen is considered one of the pioneers of 20th Century electronic music. His transdisciplinary approach transformed the culture of auditory design and embraced music as a spatial discipline in which technology, design and composition formed central components of his work.

In 2008 I had the opportunity to travel to Kurten, Germany, to study Stockhausens’ unique approach to spatial music. The aim was to reveal the unique technical and design methods employed by Stockhausen throughout his career. Stockhausen’s long-term sound projection assistant, Bryan Wolf, and personal sound engineer Igor Kavulek, explore Stockhausen’s performance techniques and address the typical problems inherent in the production of spatial sound. After returning to Melbourne, I performed the sound projection for Kontakte and Oktophonie, for the SIAL Sound Studios Stockhausen concert at the Melbourne Recital Center in 2009, and again later in the year, for Clocked Out at the Brisbane Powerhouse Museum.

This project was funded by an RMIT School Research Council seed grant.