SWARM
String Orchestra, c.15’, 2025.
Commissioned by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, through the support of Prue Ashurst.
A ‘swarm’ is a large group of organisms—usually insects, birds, fish, or other animals—that move together as a collective, often in dense, coordinated formations. It can also refer to a human crowd, a ‘swarm’ of people. As a concept, it embodies both disorienting chaos and coordinated unity, and I was excited by the sonic potential of this duality, particularly for a string orchestra.
The piece is built from a simple recurring gesture: a surge that expands to new notes before contracting back to the preceding ones. Opening with a single cello drone, new layers are gradually added as each musician follows their own part—sliding to different notes while staying in rhythmic unison. With each surge, the texture thickens, shifting between varying degrees of dissonance and harmony, and stretching outward into the extreme ranges of the ensemble. Reaching its most intense point, the music erupts into chaos before slowly descending, settling back down. With this, the overall form of the music reflects its smallest unit—a single surge.
I was drawn to the simplicity of this gesture which, when multiplied across the ensemble, amplifies its inherent momentum, giving it weight, and evoking a sense of inevitability—like a single body in motion, restless and alive.
Listen to an excerpt:
Premiere performance by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sam Weller. Recording courtesy of ABC Classic.
Swarm (film)
Creative Direction: Olivia Davies and Jordan James Kaye
Music: Olivia Davies
Movement: Georgia Rudd
A film by Jordan James Kaye
Swarm (film) is a collaborative film by Olivia Davies and Jordan James Kaye, and was made to accompany the premiere performance of Davies' string orchestra work Swarm, commissioned by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in 2025.
With a shared interest in process-driven aesthetics, Swarm was a natural meeting point for Kaye and Davies, and a concept that allowed the artists to explore in detail the material qualities of film and sound, respectively.
Developed in close collaboration with dancer Georgia Rudd, the film articulates the music’s emotional arc into physical gesture. A single dancer appears at the centre of the frame, moving slowly. Gradually, these movements start to grow, extending out from a central point then contracting back in. With each iteration, new layers appear, gestures accumulate, and the body multiplies. Where the music erupts into chaos, the visual layers contract abruptly, fixed in form, yet restless and alive.
The film’s analogue aesthetic is owed to Kaye’s mastery of 16mm film and was further shaped by an intensive editing process. The result is a film that is organically charged and considered—a visual swarm that, together with the music, evokes rhythms of nature, emotion, and physical gesture.
*the music featured in this excerpt is Davies’ electroacoustic version of SWARM.