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Composite and Parallax

Composite and Parallax, for alto sax, percussion, and immersive audio, complements the instrumentation of Bent Frequency Duo with a electronic sound palette of what I imagine to be a surreal, giant non-pitched iron instrument surrounding the audience. Throughout the piece, patterns between the two live instruments, as well as patterns within the electronic audio, shift against each other in a way I found to be evocative of a parallax effect: an effect where the direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from different positions. A common example of parallax is when looking out the window of a moving car, light poles move by faster than the trees behind them, which move by faster than the moon. In composing the piece, I tried to create some sonic illusions akin to this example, while also trying to tap into some of the feeling of catharsis (or perhaps nostalgia) of staring out the window at the moon as it appears to follow the car, as the rest of the world races by.

All the little spots in its Geography

The majority of ""All the little spots in its Geography"" is, with a few exceptions, formed to create one large, constantly evolving drone. All electronics are made in SuperCollider and are either produced by DSP or built from sine tones (deployed in small clusters to produce acoustic beatings or in large, granulated pitch arrays to produce difference tones and other otoacoustic emissions). The practice of listening is emphasized throughout the piece to construct a feedback loop (both symbolic and literal) between instrumental output and aural input. Other otoacoustic emissions and phenomena, such as acoustic beatings and difference tones, are emphasized to openly explore the possibilities, boundaries, ambiguities, tensions, and otherwise otherworldly conditions of their production. ""All the little spots in its Geography"" aims to collapse the boundary between instruments and ears.

Miles Jefferson Friday

Bent Frequency

Bent Frequency, ensemble in residence at Georgia State University, is a professional contemporary music ensemble based in Atlanta. Hailed as “one of the brightest new music ensembles on the scene today” by Gramophone magazine, Bent Frequency engages an eclectic mix of the most adventurous and impassioned players from the greater Atlanta area. Founded in 2003, Bent Frequency (BF) brings the avant-garde to life through adventurous and socially conscious programming, cross-disciplinary collaborations, and community engagement. One of BF’s primary goals is championing the work of historically underrepresented composers - music by women, composers of color, and LGBTQIA+. Its programming, educational outreach, and community events aim to be inclusive of the diverse and dynamic community they are a part of.

BF does not have a fixed instrumentation. Instead it is a modular group that is flexible enough to present everything from large-scale chamber concerts to smaller, more intimate performances. We have collaborated with some of the most ground-breaking composers working today and have produced large-scale events such as Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon’s chamber opera Comala at the International Cervantino Festival and Fiestas de Octubre in Mexico, Juan Trigos’ fully staged chamber opera DeCachetitoRaspado, Jennifer Walshe’s Barbie opera XXX_Live_Nude_Girls!!! and have held 3-day festivals celebrating the music of Steve Reich on the occasion of his 70th birthday and a Festival of New Music from Mexico. BF has appeared as ensemble-in-residence at the Tage Aktueller Musik in Nürnberg, Sam Houston State New Music Festival, Charlotte New Music Festival, New Music on the Point in Vermont and at the University of Georgia. In 2013, BF created the Bent Frequency Duo Project (Jan Berry Baker and Stuart Gerber). Together, they have commissioned over 30 new works for saxophone and percussion and have given countless performances across the USA, Mexico, and Europe. They have recently released their debut CD, Diamorpha, on the Centaur Label featuring a number of these new works.

BF has been awarded numerous prestigious and competitive governmental and foundational grants to fund the creation and promotion of New Music. Recent awards include the French American Cultural Exchange (FACE), Barlow Foundation, Georgia Council for the Arts, Copland Foundation, Fulton County Arts Council, Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew Mellon Foundation), and Culture Ireland to name a few. Bent Frequency has partnered with many ensembles, dance groups, and visual artists in creating unique productions. Recent collaborations include producing Zohn-Muldoon’s Comala with PUSH Physical Theater, a John Cage MUSICIRCUS in celebration of the centenary of Cage’s birth with the Goat Farm Arts Center, Atlanta Poet’s group and visual artist Craig Dongoski, and multiple performances with CORE Performance Company including two, three-night series events entitled On Love and Secret at the Callanwolde Arts Center. Always looking for new ways to present music to reach as wide an audience as possible, Bent Frequency has performed in traditional concert halls, art museums, galleries, bike trails and even on the Atlanta Streetcar!

Improvisation

Molly Jones

Particle Forge

From "The Unrecordables 4": I created the majority of the code for Particle Forge back in grad school, plugging away in Pd when I should have been paying attention in studio class. The idea was to create a chaotic sound design tool that created a variety of sounds through frequency modulating extremely small sine wave blips (anywhere from 20-22000 per second) heavily bandlimited by logic gates to keep the frequency modulation under control. The result was something like spraying a firehose of subatomic particles inside a supercollider...
Fast forward nearly a decade, and I rediscover the code while upgrading my computer. A little bit of tweaking, and it becomes a very interesting Max4Live patch that creates highly unstable sounds using a game controller by banging small particles together, until they collide and become something else entirely. A small reflection on super colliding particles using sine waves.

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