emblemoutdoor 5.1 music installation for Torino '06 Olympics

emblem is a 5.1 music installation mapped to the quintessential Olympic symbol of five interlocking rings.  The five rings represent the continental regions defined by the Olympic Charter (Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania).  I have translated this idea into sonic terms by assigning each of the five main speakers to a geographic region, and creating a spatial sonic collage that utilizes short samples from the vast collection of world music in the archives of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings -- everything from Japanese shakuhachi to West African kora to Norwegian hardangerfele.  One can focus on the sounds from a particular continent, the sonic dialogue between two continents (i.e. Asia and North America), or the aggregate sounding of the world in competition.  In this work I was particularly interested in unexpected correspondences between complexly diverse nations and cultures.