Daniel is an Australian composer, sound and digital media artist currently residing in Sydney.
He is currently lecturer in composition, digital music and media at the Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. He is an ardent field recordist, where he has embarked upon a growing number of recording expeditions throughout Africa, Alaska, Amazon, West Indies and Cuba, Northern Europe, Middle East, Mexico, Madagascar, Australia and the high Arctic/ North Pole region of Svalbard. His creative works have received numerous international and national composition citations. More information about Daniel, as well as samples of his work can be found www.danielblinkhorn.com.
valiha is named after a zither I encountered in the small seaside fishing village of Ifaty, in the Mozambique channel of Madagascar.
The instrument is entirely cylindrical in design, reflecting the primary material from which it is constructed, bamboo. I found instrumentalising the zither in a conventional sense to be uniquely challenging, so I decided to attempt to unlock its richly evocative potentiality by transforming 5 simple, plucked, pizzicato gestures into a piece that extends well beyond the physical confines of the zither. In doing so the work evokes the natural elements and
energies embedded within the origins of bamboo (water, grass, wind) and recycled telephone wires and discarded bicycle brake cables that are repurposed as strings. Timbres redolent of steel, bamboo and liquid jostle and collide amongst windswept textures, creating a biomimetic soundscape recounting the life force of the instrument itself.