Browse Items (868 total)

• Caution to the Winds

  Written for and recorded by pianist Richard Cass. Supported in part by the Missouri Music Teachers Association.
  
  Composer contact: mobberleyj@umkc.edu
  
  Website (scores, recordings and info): http://jamesmobberleymusic.com

• Dialogue

  Written for my perennial partner in tomfoolery, trombonist and unfathomably funny fellow, John Leisenring.
  
  PROGRAM NOTE: This work attempts to define, by example, the inherent discontinuity that exists between silicon- and carbon-based life forms. If desired, the audience can, at the end of the performance, determine which is superior. Or not. Whatever.
  
  NOTE: This work uses both live processing and fixed media.
  
  Composer contact: mobberleyj@umkc.edu
  
  Website (scores, recordings and info): http://jamesmobberleymusic.com
  

• Aspenglow

  Aspenglow (fixed media): The ASPEN system (Automated SPeech Exchange Network) was the first electronic telephone answering machine system at my university. With 80 faculty and staff answering messages, the possibilities for mischief were endless. Composer contact: mobberleyj@umkc.edu Website (scores, recordings and info): http://jamesmobberleymusic.com

• Critical Mass

  Critical Mass is defined as “the smallest amount of fissionable material sufficient to sustain a chain reaction.” It seemed an appropriate title for this brief but energetic piece. The pre-recorded sounds on the CD were derived partly from organ sounds recorded by Karel Paukert at the Cleveland Museum of Art in January 1989, and partly from the digital synthesis facilities at the University of Missouri- Kansas City. Critical Mass is the sixth in a series of works for solo instrument and CD playback, and is dedicated to Karel Paukert. It was commissioned by Mr. Frank Griesinger for the Cleveland Museum of Art.

• Soggiorno

  Written for violinists Tiberius Klausner and Sylvian Iticovici. Concert recording by David Abel.
  
  Supported in part by a grant from the Missouri Arts Council.
  
  Composer contact: mobberleyj@umkc.edu
  
  Website (scores, recordings and info): http://jamesmobberleymusic.com

• In Bocca al Lupo

  IN BOCCA AL LUPO was composed during a year’s fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, and is a companion piece to SOGGIORNO, also for violin and tape. The title means, “Into the Mouth of the Wolf”, and is an Italian saying that is equivalent to our “Break a Leg”, which is said in an encouraging way to actors and performers who are heading onto the stage. Indeed, the beginning of the piece bursts into life, much as an excited performer would take the stage, and the extensive use of tremolo recalls the combination of nerves and bravado that all of us face in performance situations.
  
  The tape sounds consist entirely of violin samples recorded and stored on computer, then manipulated, edited, and mixed using Csound software. The resulting combination of live violinist and taped violin sounds takes on the character of a concerto for performer and him/herself, with a natural timbral unity between parts.
  
  This recording is a live performance in Austin, Texas by Jennifer Bourianoff-Luke in 1995.
  
  
  Composer contact: mobberleyj@umkc.edu
  
  Website (scores, recordings and info): http://jamesmobberleymusic.com
  

• Spontaneous Combustion

  Spontaneous Combustion (1991), was commissioned by and is dedicated
  to saxophonist Timothy Timmons, and is the ninth in a series of
  works that combine soloists with a computer-generated
  accompaniment that is comprised solely of sounds from the solo
  instrument. The effect is rather like a concerto for performer and
  him/her self, exhibiting all the dramatic relationships of any
  concerto, such as solo and “tutti” passages, changing relationships between the participants (leader, follower, antagonist, partner), etc.
  The saxophone sounds were recorded, edited, and stored on a 386 machine, manipulated and mixed using Csound software, and
  converted using Micro Technology Unlimited’s DS16 ADA
  converter.

  The title describes the volatile, unpredictable, and highly charged
  character of much of the piece, which is built on horizontal and
  vertical layerings of small ideas that interact and interlock to form
  a whole which is, I hope, greater than the sum of its parts.

• Into the Maelstrom

• TNT (Turetzky'n'Tape)

  In 1987 I saw Bert Turetzky perform Kenneth Gaburo’s ‘INSIDE’ and Tom Johnson’s ‘FAILING’ at a contemporary music festival. I remember hoping at the time that I would one day get the opportunity to write for Bert. I also remember being impressed not only with his bass playing but also with his ability to control the bass and his voice at the same time. When he asked me, some years later, to compose him a piece, I decided to incorporate vocal sounds into the fabric of the piece, though in a rather different way from the two pieces I had heard. As a result, TNT (Tureztky ‘N’ Tape) uses both vocal and bass sounds to make the tape part, and calls upon the performer to use both instrument and voice simultaneously, with extensive and intricate interaction between soloist and tape, especially in the rhythmic “groove” sections. In these, soloist and tape participate in the formation of, or improvisation over multi-layered grooves that might be at home in a jazz or latin sound. The tape part was constructed entirely of bass and vocal sounds, collected, edited, and mixed using Csound software on a NextStation computer. It was performed by Bert Turetzky as a work-in-progress in 1997, then revised, remixed, and completed for premiere performance by bassist Robert Black in Estonia in 2001, with a recording on the CDCM series.

• Icarus Wept

  Icarus Wept is a five-movement work commissioned by Keith Benjamin for his trumpet and organ duo Clarion, with organist Melody Turnquist-Steed. This version of the work is for trumpet and tape only, with organ sounds on tape. It was funded by a Composers Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, “a federal agency”; therefore the original concept, involving full frontal nudity, had to be abandoned. The tape sounds are drawn from an impromptu recording session and brain fry in which we came up not only with trumpet sounds of all kinds but also with the formula for a partially androgynacious anodized serial copolymer (patent pending). We also recorded a wide variety of other sounds (e.g. Keith’s trumpet stand, swirling coins, laughter/vocal sounds, and various expletives). The title, Icarus Wept, was loosely inspired by the legendary flight of Icarus toward the sun and the sudden realization of the fatal mistake. Three movement titles reflect themes of Icarus or of the sky. Getting Waxed, Climbing the Blue Staircase (from a Native American Peyote Song), and Eleven Feet from the Sun. However, Somebody Else’s Face and the newly completed first movement, Strap on Your Lobster, have nothing to do with Icarus at all, or with weeping either, pretty much.