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2005

negativo

"el breve sonido le parece como un color tragado por una fisura"
roberto bolaño, amberes

jonathan chen, violin
rachel thompson, violin
jonathan zorn, viola
henny admoni, cello

program notes: this work was inspired by a marc francis' painting, by morton feldman' coptic light, by the rhythm and sound of the changoo (a small drum played with a bamboo stick) that accompanies the kayagum in sanjo (korean improvisational instrumental music), and by the sound of electronic clicks.

sin titulo

BSC ensemble

Bhob Rainey, soprano saxophone, director
Greg Kelley, trumpet
Liz Tonne, voice
Mike Bullock, double bass
Chris Cooper, prepared guitar and electronics
Vic Rawlings, cello and electronics
Howard Stelzer, tapes

program notes: Isamo Noguchi said: "The essence of sculpture is for me the perception of space, the continuum of our existence." This piece creates and imaginary space shaped by certain sound obessions. This quasi-static closed environment is the sort of place where you may find yourself eaten by a giant insect, or smashed by a falling tree.

2006

mancha negra del durazno

hiram navarrete, piano
jonathan zorn, distortion pedals and feedback
kyle brenders, soprano saxophone

program notes: After some time I realized that when I work with harmonies I hear them more as frequency than pitch. Distortions and feedback are applied to the sound material to amplify their frequencies making them sound closer to the way that I hear or imagine them. Again I found myself working with the image of a small resonating plucked instrument and his imaginary sound decay.

cenote

julie strand, clarinet

program notes: Deep water filled sinkholes formed by water percolating through the soft limestone above.

mazunte

kyle brenders, clarinet

program notes: Mazunte is a beautiful, quiet beach located at the Pacific Ocean in Oaxaca, Mexico. A slow glissando, modulated air, and silence.

2007

nexpa

wilfrido terrazas, flute

program notes: Nexpa is a beautiful, quiet beach located at the Pacific Ocean in Michoacan, Mexico. A slow glissando, modulated air, and silence.

lollipop

marc anderson, electric violin
hiram navarrete, SuperCollider patch

program notes: A SuperCollider patch generates loops which randomly vary in frecuency and duration each time they are repeated. The amplified violin part is scored following similar rules as the generated loops. Each loop is stretched or compressed by a slow continuous tempo shift.

swell

program notes: Since I first came across the big cereal box piece by the American artist Tom Friedmann, I thought it would be interesting for me to develop a composition using its technique. Friedman's technique centers on the idea of enlarging an image by a process of multiplication, fragmentation, and merging. His cereal box piece is made of nine copies of the same cereal box cut into little squares which are then put together to create one big box. The result is a sort of kinetic image characterized by a smooth transition between each little square of it. For my realization of this piece, I decided to apply the process I developed from Friedman's techinque to James Tenney's Seegersong No. 2.

untitled

jonathan zorn, double bass

program notes: I wanted to hear how low I could tune the E string of a double bass when I found this sound [object].

untitled

kyle brenders, soprano saxophone

program notes: The score of this piece consists of four layers of sparse loops. The performer moves slowly through each loop overlapping as many as possible.

untitled

caley monahon-ward, violin

program notes: []

untitled

joshua rubin, bass clarinet
campbell macdonald, bass clarinet

program notes: My [untitled] compositions started as a series of solos for different instruments that focused on the use of a single idea or sound. I was interested in this because I wanted to have a set of compositions that I could easily juxtapose in different performing situations. All of these pieces are characterized by a sense of emptiness that allows them to work in this context. The second and foremost idea surrounding the composition of these pieces is the intention of writing pieces that could be endlessly looped, as if they were part of a sound installation. They are structured in way that is flexible enough to allow them to function in both the context of a sound installation or a performance.

When clarinetist Joshua Rubin asked me to write a piece his bass clarinet trio, the Low-Matic All Stars, I decided that I wanted to write it in a similar fashion. Each part was shaped as a solo piece and each uses the same pitch material.

2008

untitled

sound installation
23 min. loop

program notes: Computer generated piece in which frequency, resonance, and rhythm are controlled by the same set of ratios.