Tim Benjamin

Hypermusic is an experimental piece - I wanted to try and devise a work in which alternative routes through the music would be possible, and I also wanted the piece to be "interactive", with the audience influencing the way the music would sound. At the time I was a conservatoire student and very engrossed in the possibilities of the early World Wide Web, and I was a very frequent (and in fact, the only) user of the Royal Northern College of Music's single Internet-connected computer (things have moved on a bit since then!)

The concept involved six pieces and three different groups of musicians. Members of the audience would decide the order in which each group would perform the six pieces, but the entire ensemble would perform together. I had to structure the piece carefully in order to ensure that the result would not be a cacophony!