Nightports at Hull Minster: Transporting a Site-Specific Musical Work Across Physical and Virtual Spaces

‘Nightports at Hull Minster’ is a musical project that harnesses spatialisation techniques to present music composed of the sounds of Hull Minster, UK, in both the location itself and alternative performance spaces, whilst still expressing the spatiality of the location. The root of the project is a live electronic music performance by Nightports (The Leaf Label), using only sounds recorded in the Minster itself, spatialised in real-time by another performer across a 25-loudspeaker array in situ. Three variant performance approaches are detailed that allow this original principle of spatialisation to endure in contrasting locations: a physical acousmonium in-situ; a hybrid acousmonium and virtualmonium; and headphone-targeted virtualisations for radio. The compositional and performance processes, influenced by architectural and acoustic considerations, necessitated the development of a scalable and adaptable spatialisation system by the Hull Electroacoustic Research Organisation (HEARO). Alongside the technical implementations, this paper details performance observations including the interplay between spatial dynamics, audience interaction, and sonic immersion, while also offering insights into potential refinements and advancements in the spatialisation methods.