Flights (7 mb)

The title plays with the ambiguity of the word flights: Referring to both the act of fleeing and of flying and to the well-known synonym for the word staircase. The image that began the process for me was that of the thousands of people descending the Trade Centre towers.  I imagined the river of bodies and the sounds of that dreadful rush echoing in the stairwells.  I thought too of the passengers in the plane/missiles on their early morning journeys and the familiar and reassuring rituals of cabin protocol and their sounds. I was compelled to build the work upon two ordinary events and their accompanying sounds - flying with tourists and business people in the banal surroundings of a domestic airline or walking down a flight of stairs at work.  In the plane, the only sign of the impending disaster is the familiar chime that accompanies a change in the seatbelt sign or signals the crew.  In the stairwell, it is the entrance of many people into what is usually a deserted space. 
All of the sounds that comprise Flights are from two sound sources. The first is a recording of the composer entering a stairwell and then running down flights of stairs in an office tower in downtown Vancouver. The second is of the interior of a commercial airplane in flight over the Arabian Sea. This source includes the conversation of passengers and the usual announcements one hears during a flight. Due to the nationality of the carrier and the destination of the flight, the conversations and announcements are in Arabic. Commissioned by the CBC as a response to the events of Sept. 11th one year later, the piece was created for AM broadcast and is in mono.