COMPEL Omeka Dev

Browse Items (868 total)

  • 2-, 4-, or 8-channel mixes available

    Published on two audio CDs:

    Insomnia, Kai Schumacher, piano. SWR Music/Hänssler Classic (093.334.000), June 2015.

    Here (and There), Jeri-Mae Astolfi, piano. Innova Records (Innova 846), January 2013.

  • 2- or 4-channel mixes available

    Published on 60×60 Pacific Rim Mix, 2012

  • 2-, 4-, or 8-channel TimeLines available

  • “For what is so grotesquely reduced is, in a sense, liberated from its meaning—its tininess being the outstanding thing about it. It is both a whole (that is, complete) and a fragment (so tiny, the wrong scale).” – Susan Sontag, Under the Sign of Saturn

    Let’s celebrate our corpse strewn future! was composed for Brendan Fitzgerald and Wooden Cities in the summer of 2015.

  • “…ce dangereux supplément…” is a set of phonetic studies for voice, video, and electronics. A suite of three pieces [(tRas), (spɛktʁ), and (sɑ̃dʁ)] the work is based on a close examination of the sounds used in everyday linguistic activity, which are juxtaposed against more extreme vocal effects. The live performance is supplemented with electronic voices which stretch and transform this common vocality. The visuals range from rapid-fire successions of symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet, to more suspended meditations on elaborately arranged orthographic tapestries made from the same symbols.

    “…ce dangereux supplément…” is a poetic rehearsal of the Derridean supplement, that unbelonging excess in a binary opposition which is (contradictorily) crucially indispensable. This takes place throughout the work via a dialectic between linguistic articulation (consonants) and voiced intonation (vowels). While moving between these two poles, the performer acts out a futile search for the primary referent (or “master signifier”), but eventually realizes all that is to be found is an infinite hauntology, a spectral chain of traces, specters, and cinders.

  • Excerpt of a live performance of "In Wahrheit saß ein buckliger Zwerg darin, der ein Meister im Schachspiel war und die Hand der Puppe an Schnüren lenkte" for kalimba and electronics by percussionist Patti Cudd (www.patticudd.com).

    In Wahrheit saß ein buckliger Zwerg darin, der ein Meister im Schachspiel war und die Hand der Puppe an Schnüren lenkte consists of contrapuntal dialogue between a live equal-tempered kalimba and its just-intoned and/or ring-modulated electronic reflections.

  • bats with baby faces in the violet light was created using the sounds of various objects the composer found around his home. the sounds are arranged into various gestural contexts, often with very little signal processing. the primary aesthetic aim of the piece is to exploit the unplanned and frequently unpredictable pitched sounds which often burst forth from, or which are components of, noisier, percussive gestures.

  • Earth Tones was the first significant piece of electroacoustic music I wrote in graduate school (1978), and was created using a 4-track recorder, a Moog Mark IV, an Arp 2600 with sequencer and an EchoPlex (analog echo). It’s now become an homage to the wonderful synth sounds of the 1970s and to the meeting point between contemporary concert music and progressive rock — a place I’ve been exploring and mining now for decades. Thanks for the memories.

    Composer contact:  mobberleyj@umkc.edu    

    Website (scores, recordings and info):  http://jamesmobberleymusic.com   

  • A Plurality of One was commissioned by clarinetist Robert Hill for premiere in Cleveland, Ohio.  The idea for the piece came from a recording session which provided a variety of clarinet sounds for the composer to use in making the accompanying tape part – that is, to use ONLY clarinet sounds, thereby insuring a strict timbral unity between soloist and tape.  This recording is by clarinetist Patricia Kostek-Huebner.

    Composer contact:  mobberleyj@umkc.edu    

    Website (scores, recordings and info):  http://jamesmobberleymusic.com   

Output Formats

atom, dcmes-xml, json, omeka-xml, rss2

If you see an error or would like to add content to COMPEL, please leave a comment or contact Hollis Wittman at hollisw@vt.edu.