Alistair Noble

Alistair Noble is an Australian-born pianist, composer and musicologist. He has performed extensively in recital around Australia, and made many broadcasts for the national (ABC) radio. As a chamber musician he has worked many fine performers, and as a piano duo performs regularly with his brother Colin Noble. He was a founding member of the ensemble Lachrymae Musarum (Sydney) and of the Newling Ensemble (Armidale). His compositions have been performed, recorded and broadcast in Australia and North America.
Alistair holds a PhD in composition and musicology, and is currently Head of Theory and a lecturer in Musicology at The Australian National University’s School of Music. Alistair’s primary research area is mid-20th century music, with a special focus on the work of Morton Feldman, Stefan Wolpe and Edgard Varèse.

Sounds in Translation »

Intersections of music, technology and society

Edited by: Amy Chan, Alistair Noble
Publication date: September 2009
Sounds in Translation: Intersections of music, technology and society joins a growing number of publications taking up R. Murray Schafer’s challenge to examine and to re-focus attention on the sound dimensions of our human environment. This book takes up his challenge to contemporary audiologists, musicologists and sound artists working within areas of music, cultural studies, media studies and social science to explore the idea of the ‘soundscape’ and to investigate the acoustic environment that we inhabit. It seeks to raise questions regarding the translative process of sound: 1) what happens to sound during the process of transfer and transformation; and 2) what transpires in the process of sound production/expression/performance. Sounds in Translation was conceived to take advantage of new technology and a development in book publishing, the electronic book. Much of what is written in the book is best illustrated by the sound itself, and in that sense, permits sound to ‘speak for itself’.