Browse Items · COMPEL Omeka Dev

Aphasia

Piece for singer and two-channel tape. Gestures are performed in synchrony with the sounds.

Anticenter Stream: Composition, Old Stars

Anticenter Stream, composition: Old Stars was written in collaboration with astronomer Jeff Carlin, who's research focuses on the streams of stars left behind by these dwarf galaxies when they venture too close to our much more massive Milky Way galaxy. One of these streams, known as the Anticenter Stream, was thought to be part of a much larger ring of stars, but Jeff has shown that it is likely a distinct entity. This discovery adds to our understanding of how large galaxies like the Milky Way are built up over time. Kemper’s composition, Anticenter Stream, composition: Old Stars is a meditation on Carlin’s research as well as astronomy’s role in explaining the construction of the universe.

Antagonism Constellation Factory

Stereo fixed media; found and synthesized sounds
In this electronic piece I used the temporal aspect of the material to create contrast; instead of transforming the material over the course of the piece, I tried to make the sounds stay largely the same and build the piece out of the subtleties of the relationship between them. The opening section puts sounds that seemingly have little in common in close proximity; the relationship is not developed, and instead a contrasting section begins, which soon ends up combining with the opening sounds. The resolution of this section is not what would be expected, and instead the sounds are finally transformed into something new; this, however, is short-lived. In a manner similar to Varèse’s Poème électronique, the piece focuses on the unexpected, and creates an evocative narrative through the juxtaposition of material; Antagonism Constellation Factory presents this narrative in a terse and sometimes antagonistic fashion.

And everything in-between

Commissioned and dedicated to Krisztina Dér, "And everything in-between" explores different harmonic and rhythmic material through pop-culture musical idioms.