SEAMUS releases Volume 33 of its ongoing series featuring electro-acoustic works from its member composers. Volume 33 features works from the 2023 SEAMUS National Conference in New York City, as voted by the membership for inclusion. This volume features pieces by John Gibson, Qiujiang Levi Lu, Chi Wang, Sam Pluta, Scott L. Miller, and the ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Commission first prize work by Timothy Roy.
| # | Audio | Title/Composer(s) | Performer(s) | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Time | 53:40 | |||
| 01 | In Summer Rain | In Summer Rain | John Gibson, electronics | 9:23 |
| 02 | dans les dents de la guivre | dans les dents de la guivre | Hope Cowan, harp | 10:46 |
| 03 | Tri | Tri | Laura Cocks, flute, Scott Li, electric violin, Qiujiang Levi Lu, live electronics | 7:29 |
| 04 | Transparent Affordance | Transparent Affordance | Chi Wang, data driven instrument | 6:20 |
| 05 | Matrix (for George Lewis) | Matrix (for George Lewis) | RAGE Thormbones: Mattie Barbier and Weston Olencki | 8:24 |
| 06 | Eidolon | Eidolon | TAK Ensemble, Laura Cocks, flute, Marina Kifferstein, violin, Joshua Rubin, clarinet, Ellery Trafford, percussion | 11:18 |
John Gibson’s In Summer Rain is a sonic journey through an imagined landscape, a tone poem, a piece of music that is descriptive and can evoke memories of time and place. Gibson describes the piece as an exploration of the sound of a rainstorm. It begins in a real-world environment and as the piece progresses we leave our real-world soundscape and enter an imaginary interior world where the composer explores transformations of the natural soundscape.
dans les dents de la guivre is the opening movement to a larger piece titled Valentina V. Timothy Roy created the piece as “a tragic monodrama in which the solo harpist adopts the persona of 14th-century noblewoman and virtuoso harpist Valentina Visconti…a metaphor by which to confront timeless and universal issues of isolation and loneliness, loss and grief, anxiety and depression.” Roy’s inspiration for composing the piece extends from his musicological research in medieval music. A full performance of the piece consists of a solo harpist, multichannel electroacoustic sound, and lighting.
On this recording of Tri, composer Qiujiang Levi Lu has composed a structured improvisation for three performers including the instrumentation of flute, electric violin and live electronics. Lu describes the use of electronics in their music as employing special microphones/speakers connected to the body, a laptop, and repurposed gaming controller. Due to the manner in which Lu uses electronics, essentially a kind of body augmentation, they have created an engaging sonic piece and also a visual/theatrical piece. They reference this as a driving force in their work: “Their resulting performances consist of choreographed, ritualistic improvisations that build on ancient Chinese drumming traditions and explore body dysmorphia, sexuality, spirituality, and mortality, linking together sound, movement, and violence in divine ceremony.”
Read MoreComposer Chi Wang describes her instrumentation in Transparent Affordance as a “data-driven instrument.” Data is derived from touching, titling, and rotating an iPad along with a “custom made box” of her own design. Data from interacting with the iPad is sent to Kyma, a sound design and composition tool that consists of a hardware processing unit controlled by software. In Wang’s piece, she has choreographed her interaction with the iPad resulting in an extension of herself to control Kyma. Near the end of the piece Wang uses the “box” to great effect. She places the iPad in the box and taps on the outside. Data is still transmitted to Kyma even without direct interaction, though the sounds are now generated in a much more sparse manner as though the iPad needs to rest or the performer decides to contain it. Finally the top is put on the box as one last flurry of sound escapes.
Sam Pluta’s Matrix (for George Lewis) is composed for “two muted trombones controlling electronic sounds.” The composer’s intent for the sonic aspects of the piece do not focus on the sounds of the trombones but instead the sounds which result from digital synthesizers being controlled by sonic aspects of the trombones. The results sound like a digital dialogue between the performers by way of translation from the computer. The performers are “guided” by the computer, implemented by machine listening techniques, in the sense that the computer will only respond to specific playing techniques and sounds from section to section.
Scott L. Miller describes his piece Eidolon as “...a phantom film score I thought I heard on a transatlantic flight…” Miller explores the idea of creating a score for a film that does not exist. Although the film may not exist to guide us through a narrative, the soundtrack does exist and takes the place of visual storytelling. Eidolon is scored for flute, violin, clarinet, and percussion with electronic sounds. Miller is blurring the lines between what the performers are creating and what the electronic sounds are, an aspect of how we hear the world. We can isolate and focus on sounds to identify them and we also can widen our ears to absorb a large amount of sound to process as sonic texture or a soundscape. Miller recalls and provides the sonic setting for the listener to create their own narrative, a narrative that is universal for travelers though nuanced in detail relating to our own experiences and memories.
– Brett Masteller
Produced by SEAMUS
Mastered by Scott L. Miller
Graphic design by Alison Wilder
New Focus Recordings is an artist led collective label featuring releases in contemporary creative music of many stripes, as well as new approaches to older repertoire. The label was founded by guitarist Dan Lippel, composer Peter Gilbert in 2004, and composer/engineer Ryan Streber in 2004, formed …Read More …
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