The piece was selected for performance at the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival this June 27th at the Experimental Theater. Check the link for more information about the event.
Category Archives: Articles / Writings
Faculty recital at UT on March 4th
Concert program – Dr Jorge Variego
March 4th 2015 8 PM – Powell Recital Hall
tele- (solo piano) 2010
Grace Lee
La jungla (piano y orquesta de ajubitas) 2014
fixed media
A rare form of kleptomania (violin and computer) 2014
Carlos Hernandez – violin
Jorge Variego – computer
Inner blues (vibraphone and color keyboard) 2015 – World premiere
Emory Hensley – vibraphone
Jorge Variego – color keyboard
Walls (flute nonet) 2007
Krysta Rutland, Flute, Piccolo
Lauren Asimakoupoulos, Flute, Piccolo
Dr. Shelley Binder, Flute, Piccolo
Megan Whiteman, Flute, Piccolo
Parrel Appolis, Flute, Piccolo
Olivia Anderson, Flute, Piccolo
Kathryn Lasley, Alto Flute, Flute, Piccolo
Soihban Durry, Alto Flute, Flute
Jasmeen Pantleay, Bass Flute, Flute
Director: Michael Douty
Program notes:
tele-
The piece brings back the origins of telecommunication. This idea severely limits the sonic environment: the rhythm is reduced to the basic idea of “short” and “long” values, and only a few pitches are utilized throughout the piece.
La jungla
La jungla is an automated algorithmic composition that combines textures of varying density with the manipulation of samples in real time. Written in SuperCollider, the piece uses a library of sounds taken from the book ‘Apuntes sobre nuevos recursos tímbricos para instrumentos de cuerda frotada’ by Marcelo Ajubita.
A rare form of kleptomania
The work is a derivative composition from pieces by other composers. It is a homage that celebrates many preexisting compositions without fixing to any of them. An idea formed by many other ideas with only one unique element, this very performance.
Inner blues
The work is a jazz ballad in sulfuric acid.
Walls
The piece is based on a nine-note block that is always observed from a different perspective. At the beginning it is seen as a perfect vertical simultaneity, then turning ninety degrees to become a horizontal succession of pitches that appears on the bass flute. The unison represents the moment in a three dimensions rotation of the block in which all its components remain behind the only visible one, represented by a single note. These procedures continue all through the piece until the climax point where seven piccolos gradually appear to overlap the horizontal line by the two lower flutes. Towards the end the textures become more irrupting to conclude with a choral texture that emerges from the unison.
A rare form of kleptomania at the UF Contemporary Music Festival
Terminus ensemble at UT – February 17th 2015
Terminus Ensemble of Contemporary Music was founded in 2011 to promote new classical music by composers based in Atlanta, Georgia. Terminus was the original name of Atlanta – it was the end of the line for the Western & Atlantic Railroad. But Terminus does not literally mean “the end.” Rather, it means “boundary.” Our ensemble focuses on music made by natives and residents of Atlanta, but we also seek to explore the boundaries of art music.
Alvin Lucier Orchestral works – CD review
ALVIN LUCIER Orchestra Works. Diamonds for 1, 2 or 3 Orchestras. Slices. Exploration of the house • Christian Arming, Petr Kotik, Zsolt Nagy (cn); Charles Curtis (vlc); Demarre McGill (fl); Andrea Overturf (ob); Anthony Burr (cl); Valentin Martchev (bsn); Benjamin Jaber (hn); John Wilds (trp); Kyle Covington (trb); Jonathan Piper (tb); Jeff Thayer (vln); Jisun Yang (vln); Che-Yen Chen (vla); Yao Zhao (vlc); Jeremy Kurtz-Harris (db) ; Janácek Philharmonic Orchestra • New World Records 80755-2 (76:04)
Alvin Lucier’s music arises my most primitive curiosities. When I listen to his work, all the technicalities seem not to be relevant anymore, I only want to know how those sounds have been built, how the composer fabricated all the forms, sounds and textures. I experience a sort of sensorial challenge: is Lucier’s work meant to be touched or seen?
In Diamonds for 1, 2 or 3 Orchestras (1999) Lucier becomes a painter. Using the orchestra as his palette, the composer creates sonic shapes that move in space. Unisons, glissandi, and a split ensemble are some of the orchestrational resources that trigger the listener’s imagination. It is clear that the work is about the aural representation of diamond shapes, but the connections between sound and shape could remain hidden to the inattentive ear. The trajectories, forms, and colors of the aural bodies challenge our basic act of listening raising another fundamental question: do we really listen to this work or we look at it?
The middle track of the disc, Slices for cello and orchestra (2007), is anything but a traditional cello concerto. In fact, the cellist is more of a magician with a four-stringed wand than a soloist. The 53-note cluster (probably coming from the syntonic temperament) that reigns throughout the work covers the whole playing range of the solo instrument and is orchestrated in a way that every note is assigned to a different instrument of the ensemble. The compositional process is simple: with each note that the cello plays, an instrument of the orchestra (the one that plays that same note) becomes silent. Essentially, the music goes from cluster to silence and from silence to cluster. The process is clearly revealed but yet magical. This procedure repeats—not identically—for seven times until the work ends in silence.
In Exploration of the House (2005) Lucier revisits the feedback paradigm of I am sitting in a room in which he explored the resonances of the enclosed spaces. However, the sound source of the work is not the composers’ voice, but a selection of seventeen short fragments from Beethoven’s The Consecration of the House overture performed by the Janácek Philharmonic. Far from being self referential, the piece proposes a multi-layered homage: it celebrates Beethoven and Haydn’s meta personalities that slowly evaporate in front of a static orchestra. Interestingly, the climax arrives with utmost subtlety, in the very moment when the orchestral excerpts become unintelligible and the resonances of the concert hall take over.
Lucier’s Orchestra Works is not a regular album. With only three tracks, the CD unfolds the inner ear, constantly challenging the most primary act of listening. The sounds offered are not just for aural intake, they can be touched and seen.
Close your eyes and enjoy a world of multicolored tangible sonorities.
Domino kwartet – May 2014
An excerpt of a 35′ performance by Domino kwartet from last May. The show presented an uninterrupted set of new works intertwined with segments of free improvisation. All original compositions. For more videos, visit or subscribe to the channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnZuj3JFYMuGCXE7_wVD-_w
or visit the kwartet’s site:
SoundNotion.tv
Domino kwartet at Loos – 12/11
“La jungla” at the Unbalanced Connection series #54
Dr. James Paul Sain Professor & FEMS Director
Andrew Babcock, Garrett Hecker & Rob Seaback Graduate Assistants
PROGRAM
Friday, 31 October 2014 – 7:30pm • MUB 101
Aeromancer Peter Van Zandt Lane
Peter Van Zandt Lane, bassoon
Amicus Garrett Hecker
Hydromancer Peter Van Zandt Lane
Peter Van Zandt Lane, bassoon
Jostled Michael Polo
La jungla Jorge Variego
Anacoustic Zones Ronald Keith Parks & Seth Rouser
catena Rob Seaback
Alfredo Crespo premieres “Variaciones para orquesta típica”
Excelsior! Trio performs “The end Unplugged”
On September 13th the internationally renown Excelsior! Trio performed my work “The end Unplugged” as part of the concerts at Concordia College.
More information: facebook.com/concordiaevents
Pendulum by Navona Records – CD release
New music featured in the next Society of Composers Inc. CD “Pendulum” released by PARMA Records. Click on the image to get to more information about the album, the featured artists and the scores.
More information about the Parma Music Festival:
Portsmouth Herald
http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20140807-ENTERTAIN-408070301
Manchester Union-Leader
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20140807/NEWHAMPSHIRE0105/140809261
Lawrence Eagle-Tribune
http://www.eagletribune.com/lifestyle/x1927896792/Music-Music-Music?zc_p=0
Arts Fuse