Browse Items (868 total)

• The Blind Owl

• The Animus Winds

  The Animus Winds is a composition for flute and electroacoustic sound. Thematically, the composition explores an opposition of two perceptions: the sensual experience of wind against a personification of wind as a supernatural force. The electroacoustic sound recolors and reshapes recordings of wind and flutes, such that flutes take on characteristics of the wind, and wind takes on both musical and vocal qualities. There is also a dramatic schema, in which the flute takes the role of a person who is at times drawn into the natural spirit of the wind, and at other times strongly confronts its more hostile animus.

• The Adventures of Norby

  When I was a child, one of my favorite books to read was a series of science fiction novels by Isaac Asimov entitled Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot. Although I remember very little of these books, the title character still holds a very sentimental part of my heart. In the books, Norby and his boy owner would travel the galaxy, inevitably get in to trouble, and somehow always manage to save the day. The Adventures of Norby (2007) is a theatrical work for piano and pre-recorded electronics that chronicles the exploits (unrelated to the novels) of Norby.

  The piece is very visual, and to be most effective, it must be seen in person, which I suppose makes it an unintentional statement on the societal obsession over recordings. During the piece, the pianist taps various parts of the case with his/her hands and fists, plays drumsticks on the floor, uses hard mallets inside the piano on the iron frame and the strings, and also improvises. The piece also blends several musical genres together.

• Test Pattern

• terminal loop

• TaleSpin

  TaleSpin was commissioned by the Montague/Mead Duo (Philip Mead, Piano & Stephen Montague, Electronics). It is a short musical fantasy, written in a quasi-romantic style. It has something of a program, too, whose subject may be evident from some of the section titles: Telltale, Hot Topic, Blissful Ignorance, Morning After Songs, Still Spinning, and Picking up the Pieces. Many of the electronic sounds are processed sounds recorded inside the piano, included stopped and bowed notes, plucked and struck notes, prepared notes, etc. In the outer fast sections, it is similar to a piano 4 hands piece, with the computer responsible for the middle two “hands.” The computer part is relatively simple and accompanimental, however, while that played by the performer – the outer two hands – is soloistic and quite virtuosic.

• Take a Place in the Light

  Acousmatic Work

• Tacna Three

  6-MINUTE PIECE FOR VIOLA, LIVE ELECTRONICS, AND GLOVE CONTROLLER

• T(rr)t

  This piece was dedicated to Szilárd Benes
  
  Premiered June 23rd 2015 in Graz, Austria.

• System Test (fire and ice)

  System Test (fire and ice), which primarily uses my recordings of Jacob’s ladders, ice melting, and papers sliding against each other as the sources, is a rather dramatic piece, which I attribute to the dynamic/dramatic character of the Jacob’s ladder. There is such intensity in the discharges, accompanied by wonderful sizzling, hissing, crackling sounds, and powerful low frequencies—danger is always present. The sources are convolved, stretched, granulated, equalized, and further processed many times over, then whirled into this intense piece.

  The visual component for this work uses four electroluminescent wired “imagers” in a very dark presentation space.