The project

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The concept revolves around three axes:

1. Harp duo and sound-design (Electroacoustic);
2. Surround sound diffusion;
3. Concentric arrangement of musicians, audience and speakers.

Harps and sound design

XKTdra is a harp duo: one is acoustic, the other electronic.

The first one is dedicated to a classical-type score, with many notes, lots of technique, with strings at the fingertips. It would only be amplified occasionally, and may occasionally receive a subtle delay with feedback.
The acoustic harp

However, the role of the second is not secondary. The possibilities offered by its electro-harp/MIDI/OSC system are immense. It can range from clear and delicate sounds to massive sonic clusters, from the typical electro sequence to ethereal and enveloping soundscapes. It is much more than a synthesizer, while remaining a harp… it’s new, it’s breathtaking.
The electronic harp

Surround sound diffusion

Creating big sound would not align with the image of the harp, whether it be galactic-blue or inlaid with rosewood and olive wood.

However, the inexhaustible diversity of digital audio synthesis, effects, and sampling deserves a wider 360° space of expression. Sound objects find their place in a minimum quadraphonic diffusion, creating moving, animated or dancing universes. These universes harmoniously integrate the acoustic harp, its clarity, its sometimes airy, sometimes brutal presence.
Periphony

Concentric arrangement

No big sound, no large-scale venue. The project is meant to be integrated into more intimate and unexpected spaces. Despite its occasionally grandiose accents, the concept inherits from chamber music.

Moreover, the audience is not seated facing an open window to an inaccessible music stage but placed inside the music itself, as the speakers surround them, and they are arranged around the duet performers.

This arrangement allows playing in venues without a stage, potentially anywhere, as long as it is unexpected, remarkable, and original.