How long is a piece of string? San Francisco-based experimental composer Ellen Fullman’s Long String Instrument spans 25-metres down the centre of the Sydney Town Hall, barely visible fibres stretched between two timbre frames weighted down with concrete blocks. Small metal weights hang like butterflies at points interspersed across the strings and the numbers one through 24 are marked on the floor at even intervals.

The audience is splayed out either side of the instrument – which Fullman has been developing for over 30 years – the performance of Harbors beginning in darkness and silence as Fullman coats her fingers in rosin. Her duo partner, cellist Theresa Wong, is seated to the side on a raised platform, with laptop and effects pedal.

^{Theresa Wong and Ellen Fullman perform Harbors, photo by Jamie Williams}

Hands clawed across the strings, Fullman begins to walk up the centre of the Town Hall, and pitches emerge from nothing, hums delicately spooling from the silence with the pure timbre of singing bowls.

Fullman moves slowly, with a reverent focus, as the complex sheen of sound fills the resonating chamber of the Town Hall. Darker and lighter shades create...