Tell us about BitterSuite – what exactly
do you guys do?
We create sensory concerts for classical music.
All of our bigger concerts have been one-to-one
experiences for classical music. Each audience
member gets blindfolded and given bespoke
taste and smells that were inspired and created
to enhance the specific moment.
It’s an experiment, drawing on synaesthesia
and cross-modality. Cross-modality gets us to
think about how one sense impacts on another
– for example, higher-pitched major music on
bells/chimes can make foods taste sweeter.
Why is the classical concert so important
to you?
I’m very connected to classical music personally.
It evokes a type of artistic experience that I
cannot live without. I’m also super interested in
the listenership of classical music and how we
can play with the way it is listened to make it
more accessible to today’s audiences. If indeed
you jump on board the idea that it needs to do
that – which I completely understand that not
everyone does.
How did you get involved with BitterSuite
and what is it about synaesthesia that you
find so compelling?
BitterSuite began as a prompt for creating new
types of graphic notation (a non-conventional
musical score where graphics, shapes, symbols
correspond to certain musical notes and ideas).
I was interested and inspired by lots of artists
and ideas that came before me to extend this
principle into the senses.
Finding out about synaesthesia served as my
introduction to the sensory world, and the
impact one sense can have on the other. This
led me to cross-modality, which is perhaps
more truly what BitterSuite is inspired by.
Synaesthesia is the individual experience,