Œuvres musicales

Written as one of the pieces in a broader project, inter- is a work written for soprano saxophone, baritone saxophone, resonant springs, and ambisonics electronics. In inter-, I’m exploring various modalities and relationships which can be characterized as somehow being “liminal” or falling within an “in-between” state. As a result of this, most of the elements of the piece require the performers to execute materials which are focused on transitions that occur between two points. While I was initially unsure of how this might manifest sonically, the result of this concept yields a work that is both meditative and chaotic, yet curiously unified.

As I was writing the piece, I chose to conceptually frame all of these various states and relationships I was exploring through words that use the latin prefix “inter-”. These include, but are not limited to:

interstice intersect interpolate interdict interconnect intercept interrelate intervene interfere

An example of one of these concepts, interference, can be heard in the difference tones and complex timbres which occur both within the air column of the saxophones themselves, and also in the resonant spring circuit utilized in order to perform this piece. The soprano and baritone saxophones are outfitted with microphones which are amplified directly into the tensioned springs at opposite ends. Meanwhile, the springs themselves are outfitted with contact microphones in the center, which pick up the resonance and interference of the sound transduced into the springs. This already complex system is then further manipulated by two spring performers. All of the sound produced by the performers is then picked back up and manipulated in real-time in Max/MSP, and rendered in both third and second-order ambisonics.