MUCO 342's class concert (2009) was held March 14th in Tanna Schulich hall at 8pm.
"Projection, Retrojection" - Beavan Flanagan Laura Dickens , clarinet
It has long been the musician's goal to produce a tiny pocket of time over which he has absolute control. Aware of this pocket's beginning and end, as well as the various events that take place during its unfolding, the composer can cut up, paste and move around little slivers of his creation to different spots on the timeline, resulting in a constant pushing and pulling action between the past, the future and the present. I would invite the audience, however, to take pleasure in each event as it unfolds, as the mind's tendency to throw itself backwards and forwards simultaneously is a tiring activity; predicting the future is impossible, memories can sometimes throw us off our path.
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"The Descent" - Conor O'Neil Tori Ames , baritone saxophone
The Descent, composed in 2009, is an electro-acoustic work for baritone saxophone and 'tape' (processed audio material), written for saxophonist Tori Ames and to fulfill requirements for the MUCO 342 course in Digital Studio Composition. All of the processed material comes from recordings of baritone saxophone (played by Tori). The work is in 6 short sections: after a brief introduction, marked by a descending melodic line in the bari saw part, the subsequent five (5) sections represent the emotional hellride of a person stricken with a terminal illness. The 2nd through 6th sections are each named for the 5 stages of grief, according to the Kübler-Ross model: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Each of the first four of these sections contains contrasting musical material; the final section takes on bits of each of the previous sections in the tape part while Tori recalls the theme from the introductory music. Symbolically, this "bringing-it-all-back-home" moment represents the acceptance both of the fate of the dying subject and of the feelings they had to deal with in their struggle against their own inevitable mortality.
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"Flatline" - Kolya Kowalchuk Fjola Evans , cello
A flatline is an electrical time sequence measurement showing no activity, and therefore representing a flat line. In most cases, a flatline refers to an electrocardiogram, where the heart shows no electrical activity, or to a flat electroencephalogram, where the brain shows no electrical activity. Both of these instances are used to define clinical death. In the instance of a total cardiac flatline, the choice of treatment is an injection coupled with heart compressions. The rate of successful resuscitation is low.
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"To Know Terror"(prelude for electronic media) - Haralabos Stafylakis"Scorched Earth" - Haralabos Stafylakis Adam Pietrykowski , electric guitar Rebecca Molinari , recorder
The concept of a post-apocalyptic Earth has been the source of countless stories in humanity's history, appearing in various guises: as novels, films, scriptural/mythological passages, songs, comedies, etc. The idea that our species may meet with catastrophic extinction - whether through our own devices, through foreign (alien?) intervention, or through natural disaster - has often been associated with fear of technology and an obsession with certain moral conditions. After all, the thought of becoming nothing but a stain in some god's underpants both fascinates and terrifies us. Inspired by the particular apocalyptic landscapes presented in David Lynch's Eraserhead and Pixar's Wall-E, this composition attempts to recreate the projected experience of witnessing - and surviving - just such a disaster.Scorched Earth begins with a series of violent events. As the proverbial smoke clears, two characters seem to emerge from the rubble, each represented by one of the live instruments (one might attribute gender characteristics to each). After a fragmentary introduction, the instruments combine to present a haunting melody, an expression of the nostalgia one might feel for the world as it once was. This memory is abruptly interrupted by the guitar in angry denial, and there ensues a passage of hypnotic dementia, in which the recorder loops an arpeggio ostinato over which the guitar solos in the manner of a raving lunatic. The instruments eventually combine in an out-of-phase dance as the world seems to reel in aftershocks from the apocalyptic events with which we began. In the calm aftermath, the two characters wander aimlessly through a radioactive wasteland until the nostalgia theme returns at the end in a more fatalistic form. The piece ends with the 'tape' and guitar suddenly cutting out while the recorder is left hanging on its penultimate word/note for a brief moment - and the rest, as they say, is silence.
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~spin~ is a new project of James Harley (electroacoustics, processing and sound diffusion) and Ellen Waterman (flutes/voice). Improvisation and electroacoustic composition are spun together in multi-channel performance environments. The program includes Harley's composition Wild Fruits 2: like a ragged flock, like pulverized jade (2006) and three contrasting improvisations. Wild Fruits 2 is a hybrid, both composition and improvisation, both pre-recorded and live, both fixed and mutable. It is a collaboration in which both partners have complete autonomy over their contributions, necessitating a high degree of trust. Amplified flute sounds are put under a sonic microscope, spun reverberating around a multi-speaker scenario, but in other ways are left untouched. The flute/voice acoustically mimics recorded and digitally manipulated signals. Real time spatialization blurs the line between acoustically and electronically rendered sounds (which is which?) in a cyborg piece that spins a utopic myth of pristine nature in the full realization of its absence. Recordings made in both 'urban' and 'natural' environments are transformed through digital manipulation into a raw and wild presence. Harley's compositional sub-text provides inspiration for my improvisation; it is a series of excerpts from Annie Dillard's hymn to nature: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. 'In September the birds were quiet...In October the great restlessness came ...the restlessness of birds before migration... The birds were excited, stammering new songs all day long. ...I watched at the creek. A new wind lifted the hair on my arms. The cold light was coming and going between oversized, careening clouds; patches of blue, like a ragged flock of protean birds, shifted and stretched, flapping and racing from one end of the sky to the other" Like most works for live, acoustic musician and digital manipulation, the performance of Wild Fruits 2 is deceptive. The eye is drawn to the embodied performer, wired flute, animated flutist, but the sound is equally controlled by the unassuming figure hidden behind a laptop. Speakers are the real mouths of the piece, which is a chorus not a duo.
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