'Alien in the Landscape', a new major musical/sound art work by international award winning Australian Composer Colin Black, is to be broadcast on DeutschlandRadio at 10:05 am (Sydney time) on 14th March 2008 and Australians can tune in via the internet by going to http://www.dradio.de/dkultur/sendungen/klangkunst/733220/

This musical/sound art work reaches into remote locations that the enigmatic explorer Ludwig Leichhardt passed through, spiritually tracking the residue left by this alien in the Australian landscape with the “Extended Enviro Guitar”, an adaptation of the traditional guitar that is played upon by the environment.

Producer, composer and sound artist Colin Black conceived and created the “Extended Enviro Guitar” which has additional 2 -15 metre strings attached to the conventional guitar strings, is played by the environment and the sound is then used directly or processed by various effects.
Black uses the 'Extended Enviro-Guitar' (an extended European instrument) as a sonic metaphor for Leichhardt’s physical, psychological and spiritual metamorphosis, resulting from his continuing exposure to the Australian Outback landscape.

Leichhardt’s mysterious disappearance plagued the minds of other early Australian explorers and over time his legend grew to iconic, almost mythological status within Australian culture having towns, highways, rivers, fauna and flora named after him.
This new work deftly crafts the extended guitarscape (in both mono and stereo site specific set ups) with indigenous Australian language, atmos location recordings of remote sites once visited by Leichhardt and words/thoughts from the historical “Journal of Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt’s Overland Expedition to Port Essington in the Years 1844 - 45”, first published in 1846.

“Alien in the Landscape” expresses the psychological, physical and spiritual osmosis of the exchange of particles between Ludwig Leichhardt, the first white man to have ever journeyed to these regions and the ancient Australian Landscape that he ventured into and eventually became a part of.

How does an Alien in the Landscape adapt to the environment and is the environment also changed by the intrusion… forever?

About The Composer;
Colin Black won the prestigious Prix Italia Award for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2003 competing against international broadcasters including the BBC, CBC (Canada) and more than 60 countries around the world.  Black was awarded this prize for composing and producing his major work 'The Ears Outside My Listening Room' which the BBC has described as "a haunting evocation of Australia"

In 2002 Black was awarded the ABC radio, New Media Arts, Artist in Residence Fellowship and has produce a series of major music/sound art hybrid works for broadcast.

Black's works have been selected for performance at events including ""En Red O 2000" music festival Barcelona Spain, the Festival Synthese Bourges France, Rencontres Musiques Nouvelles, Lunel France, 60x60 Pacific Basin Regional Concert Los Angeles USA, Zèppelin 2004-Festival de Arte Sonoro Barcelona, Spain, Hipersonica 2004 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, The Literature Sound Barrier 2002 in Wien, Austria, Sydney University's Live Wires concerts '97, '98, and Melbourne's Extatic Concert for the Next Wave festival '98

Black's work has also been commissioned/selected for broadcast and podcast on stations including Deutschlandradio Kultur, the BBC, YLE Radio (Finland), Sveriges Radio (Sweden) as well as many other European stations and in South Africa, New Zealand and numerous times across Australia.

Black is also currently writing and recording a new major musical/soundart hybrid work for performance and broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation network later this year.

For more info about Black see http://users.tpg.com.au/users/cydonian/c_black.html
For Black on the DeutschlandRadio site see http://www.dradio.de/dkultur/sendungen/klangkunst/733220/