NOTES ON THE COMPOSITIONS

Listed in reverse chronological order

Shattered Apparitions of the Western Wind
(2013, 21 minutes, for piano and tape, inspired by Debussy)
World premiere by Kathleen Supové in her "Digital Debussy" project, The Flea Theater, New York City, April 25-27, 2013
Commissioned by Commissioning Music USA

“Shattered Apparitions of the Western Wind” is an extended work for piano and electronics in four movements commissioned for Kathleen Supové’s “Digital Debussy” program. Imagined as a hallucinatory duet with Claude Debussy and further inspired by Hurricane Sandy, the piece couples Supové’s wild playing with recordings of distorted fragments of the original prelude and on-site recordings of Hurricane Sandy.
I had already chosen to use Debussy’s stormy prelude “What the West Wind Saw” (Ce Qu'A Vu Le Vent D'Ouest) as a starting point for this piece, referencing Debussy’s untamed and imaginative interpretation of the destructive forces of nature, when the Eastern Seaboard was hit by Hurricane Sandy. After experiencing the power of the storm first hand, I was struck by the wild contrasts that the hurricane left in her wake: some sections of the city were untouched, while adjoining areas suffered total destruction. I used melodic and harmonic elements from the original prelude in small, untouched phrases alongside altered fragments that were seemingly twisted, distorted, and destroyed by the wind to echo these odd contradictions. The electronic backing track is made up entirely of the sounds of piano and wind: altered fragments of the original prelude are coupled with recordings made of Hurricane Sandy. I also morphed these two sources electronically to create oddly intertwined hybrid sounds that meld the noisy, crackling energy of the storm with the prelude’s tumultuous piano. The piece shifts between the acoustic and electronic realms, contrasting the eerie stillness of the eye of the storm with the violent force of the wind rending everything in its path, creating an electronic counterpart to a windswept landscape. Composed for Kathleen Supové, the piece is driven by her unique approach to the piano, her mad energy, her dramatic, virtuosic style, and the notion of this dynamic pianist duetting with a ghostly apparition of Debussy and his interpretation of these universally destructive forces.
“Shattered Apparitions of the Western Wind” was commissioned as part of a national series of works from NEW MUSIC USA’s Commissioning Music/USA program, which is made possible by generous support from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Helen F. Whitaker Fund.

Long Waves and Random Pulses
Electronic version
(2012, 13 minutes, for violin and tape) World premiere by Monica Germino at the Night of the Unexpected Festival, Utrecht, Holland, September 6, 2012.

Acoustic version
(2012, 13 minutes, for violin) World premiere by Elfa Run Kristindottir at the Oudemuziek Festival, Utrecht, Holland, August 26, 2012.
Commissioned by Gaudeamus Muziekweek

Long Waves and Random Pulses is a duet for violin and jammed radio signals. The piece was presented in a unique double premiere: one version (without tape) was performed by Elfa Run Kristindottir at Utrecht’s Oudemuziek (early music) Festival, the other version (with tape) was performed by Monica Germino at Holland’s 3-city new music festival “Night of the Unexpected”. I composed and researched the piece at the American Academy in Berlin, using original recordings of jamming sounds that were used to block radio transmissions in Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union in World War II.  The violin merges and emerges, shifting from music, to noise, to pure signal while fading in and out of the sounds of intentional radio interference. The electronic backing track includes a repeated six-note figure that was drawn from original recordings of an Italian radio jamming device, a buzzing pitched pulse from a German jamming device, a quote from J. S. Bach’s Chaconne in D Minor as it could have been heard in a jammed broadcast, and many extended techniques that evoke the sounds of these otherworldly radio signals. The violin part alternates between virtuosic and textural playing, shifting between notes and noise, custom made for Monica’s great technique and dramatic performance skills. The all acoustic version features Elfa Run Kristindottir’s unique blend of beautiful tone and fine control of extended techniques, with the radio-inspired noise incorporated into the notated part. I considered how a listener might perceive these unpredictable shifting sounds when he or she turned on the radio and was confronted with the odd results of two very different signals competing for the same wavelength, as well as the constant transformation and the dynamic tension between music, noise, and the interference of pure signal. As for the title, Long Waves refers to the long wave radio frequencies that many of these interrupted signals were broadcast on. Random Pulses represents a method of radio jamming that uses a random pulse noise to override the program broadcast on the target radio frequency.

A Luminous Reflection of Metallic Direction
(2012, 15 minutes, for cello and tape) World premiere by
Frances-Marie Uitti, MaerzMusik, Berghain, Berlin March 21, 2012
Commissioned by MaerzMusik and the American Academy in Berlin

This work for cello and electronics was composed during my fellowship at The American Academy in Berlin and premiered at the infamous club Berghain. It was hard to resist making an audio analogy to the questions of East and West in the city, so I used stereo panning and imaging, along with dub effects, big bassy sounds, and throbbing drums to represent the East-West parallels, contrasts, and distortions, and to make the best use of Berghain’s legendary sound system. Frances Marie Uitti premiered the piece on a rare 1920‘s aluminum cello, which inspired me to focus on metal sounds, and revisit the extensive library of samples that I made during a fellowship in the factories of Nuremberg, Germany, that was sponsored by the Siemens Arts Program. I also used my archive of live recordings of metal percussion, machine sounds, and samples of Ms. Uitti’s unique cello sounds. Frances-Marie and I worked together closely to develop this new work, and the last section of the piece is written for the unique 2-bow technique that she has developed. it is an honor to collaborate with her to create a piece in which she has freedom to be herself and express her unique vision for the cello.

Phantom Shakedown
(2012, 8 minutes, for piano and tape/recorded media)
World premiere by Annie Gosfield at the Moving Sounds Festival, New York City, September 14, 2012

Phantom Shakedown is performed live on piano, accompanied by samples of detuned and prepared piano, a grinding cement mixer, the howl of a malfunctioning shortwave radio, and a mixed din of tube noise and other failing technologies. The piece is an audio snapshot of my odd sonic environment, and juxtaposes the wide mix of piano music that I have absorbed over the years, from John Cage to James Booker, along with some recently recorded off-kilter mechanical sounds.
Phantom Shakedown is part of an ongoing series of compositions for solo acoustic instruments with electronics that I developed in close collaboration with individual musicians. Composed for the Tzadik CD “Almost Truths and Open Deceptions”, this is the first piece in the series that I perform myself. It completes this CD’s unofficial theme of compositions that feature raucous, noisy keyboard playing, from cluster-heavy piano parts to driving machine samples.

Floating Messages and Fading Frequencies
(2011, 30 minutes, for flute, oboe, clarinet, percussion, violin, viola, cello, and bass, with sampler/electronics, drums, and electric guitar) World premiere by Athelas Sinfonietta and Annie Gosfield trio, conducted by Pierre-André Valade, November 23, 2011, Dartington Great Hall, United Kingdom. Commissioned by the DaNY arts initiative to foster collaboration between Denmark and NYC, with support from the CAP Fund. Also performed at the Huddersfield Festival, Liverpool, and Nottingham.

“Floating Messages and Fading Frequencies” is inspired by the clandestine radio transmissions of European resistance groups in World War II. Although the piece is not intended to be a literal interpretation of past events, the rich history of individual resistance fighters finding inventive, unorthodox ways to communicate secret messages against great odds provided a wealth of inspiration. Sounds such as shortwave oscillations, Morse code, and radio static are all interpreted by both acoustic and electronic instruments. The poem codes used by the resistance play a role as well: lyrical, poetic statements were used to indicate an individual radio operator’s coding system, and poems were used as cryptic messages to communicate covert information, such as the time of a weapons drop, a military maneuver, or the location of an act of sabotage. Musical materials make the same transformation, from lyrical, to abstract, to a final concrete action, which could be a violent statement, a musical change of direction, or simply an ephemeral phrase. Figures repeat, cycle, and transform, inspired by the resistance’s ever changing systems of encryption and abstraction of information. Other aspects of the resistance’s communication methods serve as inspiration as well, such as the common five character codes, represented by a repeating five-note figure in the winds or strings. Many messages simply communicated a new frequency on which subsequent messages would be transmitted, which is evoked by the ensemble subtly shifting from one frequency range to another. A great deal of the radio traffic meant nothing, and was broadcast in order to create meaningless chatter that would keep German decoders busy, creating a sea of signals from which critical messages would emerge, the same way that a melody emerges from a tangle of five note figures or a slowly shifting bed of static noise.

Burn Again with a Low Blue Flame
(2011, 20 minutes, for cello and tape) World premiere by Mathis Mayr at the A•Devantgarde Festival, Munich, Germany, June 4, 2011. Commissioned by the A•Devantgarde Festival

Burn Again with a Low Blue Flame is a work that is to be played twice: once as a simple tape piece, and then again as a piece for cello and electronics. The recorded element of the piece is almost identical, but the cellist becomes the focus for the second version, in a fully notated part that in turn blends, contrasts, and stands out from a recorded orchestra of strings, winds, and mechanical sounds.

I used recordings that I had made of a string quartet and a wind trio performing my music, specifically pieces that featured slow, gradual microtonal glissandi. I made samples of these slowly shifting pitches, looped the sounds and arranged them across a sampling keyboard so I could, in essence, play them live. I further refined the piece, experimenting with density and shifting pitch, and added less traditionally “musical” sources: recordings of a giant noisy truck that siphoned water one block from my home on a windy night, and a quick snippet of an old analog synthesizer. The piece varies from a one-note drone to dense melodic and harmonic figures, all made up of these samples. The slow glissandi become varied melodic figures as the speed of each individual sample is altered, shifted in pitch, and layered.

This commission for the A*devantgarde festival was inspired by home recording. I wanted to bring my own notated music (in the form of sampled recordings) back to my home in order to approach it from a more abstract, textural context. I added mechanical sounds, and gave all of the musical materials equal importance, treating both orchestral instruments and street sounds as maleable sources in my home recording. Extraneous noise is an important element as well: there are crashes, bangs, and wind sounds in my home recordings that find their way into the finished work. Having the piece performed a second time with a cellist brings it back to the realm of notated music, but set against an abstract background of the sounds of a composer’s natural environment, a symphony of orchestral instruments, machines, and street noise.

A Bowler Hat
reimagined for Anthony De Mare’s “Liaisons” project
(2011, 8 minutes, for piano) World Premiere by Anthony DeMare at Symphony Space, NYC, March 9, 2013.
Commissioned by the Liaisons Project

When invited to select a piece to arrange for Anthony DeMare's Sondheim project, I chose “A Bowler Hat” because of its unusual theme both musically and in terms of narrative. It is from "Pacific Overtures", and features a repeated theme is beautifully constructed, very catchy, and a little melancholy. The subject of the musical is the difficult Westernization of Japan, told from the point of view of the Japanese. I was intrigued by this unusual song, and as a former milliner, the reference to the bowler hat made it a perfect match for me

Daughters of the Industrial Revolution
(2011, 45 minutes, for sampler, guitar, drum set, percussion, and cello)
World premiere by Annie Gosfield trio: Roger Kleier (guitar); Annie Gosfield (sampler); Ches Smith (drums); with Felix Fan (cello) and Alex Lipowski (percussion) at the Kitchen, NYC, March 4-5 2011

“Daughters of the Industrial Revolution”is inspired by my immigrant grandfather, a junk dealer on the Lower East Side who recycled scrap metal and other byproducts of the industrial revolution, and my grandmother, who worked in sweatshops in the Lower East Side when she was a young girl. I am a third generation daughter of the industrial revolution, linked to this history, not only genetically and geographically, but as a composer who often uses raw materials and transforms them into something new. In this piece, the raw materials often take the form of factory sounds and machine rhythms played on acoustic, electric, and electronic instruments, appropriate to a piece so focused on a time of sweeping technological changes.
I’ve always led parallel musical lives, balancing playing in my own band with composing notated music for others. This is the first project in which these two lives are so intertwined. It’s been fascinating to explore the common ground between such varied musical languages, and address the challenge of integrating the beauty of found sounds, electronic sounds, and noise with more traditional compositional techniques. I wanted to work with my trio (Roger and Ches) augmented by two excellent champions of new music (Felix and Alex). I wrote very specifically for this group of musicians, taking into account the individual strengths and personal experiences of each player, and came up with a piece that incorporates notated music, improvisation, and musical collaboration more common to a band, with influences that touch on rock, contemporary classical music, twangy guitars, Studio One dub, spaghetti westerns, and pure noise.
Like a machine comprised of many moving parts, “Daughters of the Industrial Revolution” is made up of several individual sections, and features solos, duos, and trios as well as parts for the entire group. Thanks to the luxury of a few days of rehearsal with a great group of musicians, we had opportunity to develop and sculpt the piece together. The idea was to experiment in creating one big piece, so I headed into rehearsal with finished scores, open-ended ideas, and everything in between. I played with doublings and literal repetition much more than I normally do, inspired by the repetitive, insistent nature of machine sounds, and the subtly changing repeats heard in factories. The contrast of acoustic vs. electric sounds, and notated vs. improvised ideas mirror the technological and cultural shifts that were so common in the industrial revolution, and the jarring changes and odd juxtapositions that took place in people's lives.
This piece is largely about raw materials and how they are transformed. My raw materials included rhythmic figures, melodic ideas, and textures as well as actual factory sounds. A mournful melody played freely on the guitar is echoed in a notated part for the cello. Rhythms are volleyed back and forth between a rock drummer and a classical percussionist in a drum battle that accompanies a cello. Machine sounds provide fuel for the band, and each musician interprets the machine differently. Many of the raw materials are electronic. Armed with a digital keyboard sampler, I am playing a variety of machine sounds, some of which were recorded during my residency in the factories of Nuremberg, Germany. Other sounds are part of my local environment, such as a cement mixer recorded outside my window. Several samples originate from a train repair factory in Pennsylvania that still uses antique machinery. In the spirit of re-using materials, there are also many samples of Felix’s cello, Roger’s guitar, and Ches and Alex’s percussion. Triggering the samples with a piano-style keyboard lets me be an active member of the ensemble, and have fun leading the band. The industrial influence appears in purely acoustic sections as well, in the form of insistent machine rhythms and noisy timbres played on cello and percussion.
Whenever I leave my apartment and walk down Second Avenue, I see a patch of old exposed cobblestones peeking through the pavement, and think of how my grandparents walked the same streets, so affected by the changing cultures and technologies of their day. My own experiences are very different from theirs, but in the end I am truly a daughter of the industrial revolution, making a life for myself in New York, and doing my best to use old and new technology to make something out of nothing.

The Blue Horse Walks on the Horizon
(2010, 17 minutes, for string quartet)
World premiere by the Jasper String Quartet at the Caramoor Center for Music and Arts, Katonah, New York, August 5, 2010.
Commissioned by the Caramoor International Music Festival, on behalf of the Jasper String Quartet, for A String Quartet Library for the 21st Century

“The Blue Horse Walks on the Horizon” is inspired by the surreal radio broadcasts and codes used by European resistance groups in World War II.
It incorporates musical materials drawn from the mysterious “Messages Personnels” broadcast to the French Resistance, a silken code scarf used by Danish Resistance members, and the transformative processes of encryption.

The figure in the beginning of the piece is based on the rhythm of “Le cheval bleu se promène sur l'horizon” (the blue horse walks on the horizon), which was one of the statements broadcast from the British to the French Resistance in their “messages personnels” radio program. These broadcasts, which transmitted secret messages to resistance forces all over France, consisted of surreal phrases that were read over some very odd music. As the show became very popular, hundreds of these messages were read out every evening, which succeeded in keeping German decoders very busy. I listened to a recording of this compelling, hypnotic broadcast, transcribed the message, and imagined the repeating rhythmic figure as a series of voices in the distance.

Another source of inspiration was a a piece of silk imprinted with codes that was used by the Danish Resistance in the field. I was struck by the beauty of this object that somehow survived the war, and the fleeting nature of the transmission of such critical information. When encrypting a message, resistance members would use one line of code, tear it off, and then burn it. I took a picture of the silken relic and read it like music, assigning individual letters to pitches. Like a message emerging from a random sea of characters, I heard melodic fragments materializing out of a bed of sustained, ethereal harmonics. In my research, I also found many pages of 5-character codes, which I transcribed and used as shifting, repeating figures that represent the ephemeral quality of these coded messages, and their transformation from abstract information, to a decoded message, to a specific action, such as a violent act of sabotage.

This piece was written for the Jasper String Quartet, and their wonderful mix of enthusiasm and highly developed technique. The piece is also dedicated to Bernard Peiffer, who was a great pianist and was a member of the French Resistance in WWII. I had the pleasure of studying piano with Bernard during my most formative years, and he continues to be a source of great inspiration.

Five Characters Walk Into a Bar
(2009, 10 minutes, for piano solo) Premiere by Sarah Cahill at the Caramoor Festival, New York, March 28, 2010

Five Characters Walk Into a Bar is inspired by the clandestine activities of the Danish Resistance in World War II, and the 5-character codes that the resistance used to transmit secret messages. These five characters (originally letters, represented here by pitches) snake their way through individual bars (measures) in which they repeat, cycle, and transform, inspired by the resistance’s use of encryption, and the transformation and abstraction of information.

Broken Nails and Metal Tails
(2009, 7 minutes, for kalimba and electronics/recorded media) Premiere by Jennifer Hymer in the Klang!-Container, Hamburg, Germany, September 12, 2009. Commissioned by the Hamburg Netzwerk Project "Klang!"

Broken Nails and Metal Tails is titled for the metal tails (the tines, or keys) of the kalimba, and the broken thumb nails that I got from plucking the tines as I composed the piece. One of my favorite qualities of the kalimba is the unpredictable tunings that the instrument can have, so instead of using its standard two-octave G-major scale, I created some odd intervals by detuning the F#’s to pitches closer to G. Performed live on the kalimba with a recording of electronic sounds, Broken Nails and Metal Tails uses sounds from factories that I recorded in Nuremberg (as part of the Siemens Corporation’s program to combine art and industry), old analog synthesizer samples, with recordings of extended techniques on cello, piano, and kalimba thrown into the mix. I loved the image of Jennifer playing this portable instrument in a portable container; by adding varied electronic sounds from my own musical history, I could import my own musical world into this very unusual environment. Thank you to Jennifer Hymer for giving me the opportunity to create a new piece and be part of this project.

Lightning Slingers and Dead Ringers
(2008, 21 minutes, for piano and sampler)
Premiere by Lisa Moore in Canberra, Australia, May 8, 2008
US premiere at the Bang on a Can Marathon, New York, May 31, 2008
Score available for sale wth samples for the application "Kontakt3"
Commissioned by the Meet the Composer's Commissioning USA
and The Argosy Fund for New Music

Lightning Slingers and Dead Ringers was composed for Lisa Moore, who performs the piece on piano and sampler. Instead of using a pre-recorded electronic track, I incorporated electronic sounds using a sampler (essentially a digital recorder controlled by a piano-style keyboard) so that Lisa could use her great piano technique and interpretive skills in both the acoustic and electronic realms. “Lightning Slinger” is an archaic term for a telegraph operator, and an apt simile for a pianist who translates musical ideas into an electric medium - not to mention the fact that Lisa’s virtuosic part shows off her ability to sling plenty of lightning herself. “Dead Ringer”, which means an exact substitute, is a term that was first coined at racetracks when a superior lookalike horse would be substituted to foil the bookies and beat the odds. The dead ringers in this case are samples of piano sounds: the detuned, retuned, pinging, sliding, and rattling sounds are altered piano, prepared piano, and inside the piano techniques, which sometimes resemble guitar, bass, and even synthesizer sounds. Towards the end of the piece the machines step in, incorporating samples drawn from factory environments along with vintage analog Serge and Arp synthesizers. The machine sounds were taken from the vast library of factory environments that I recorded in Nuremberg, Germany during a residency designed to combine art and industry. In the end, the piano part takes its cue from the samples: propelled by driving rhythms and dense tonalities, the piano becomes part of the machine itself. All of the samples were recorded and edited on Native Instrument’s Kontakt3 sampler.

Almost Truths and Open Deceptions
(2007, 21 minutes, cello chamber concerto for cello, percussion, piano,
2 violins, viola, and contrabass)
Premiere by Felix Fan, with David Cossin, Blair McMillen, Nurit Pacht,
Jennifer Choi, Max Mandel, and Robert Black, at Merkin Concert Hall,
New York, May 3, 2007
Score and parts available for sale
Commissioned by the Kaufmann Center, with funds provided by the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust

Almost Truths and Open Deceptions is titled for the almost-unisons (almost truths) that clash and glissando towards a mass of open D strings (open D-ceptions) played by all of the string players. As I wrote the piece, I assembled an ensemble of frighteningly talented musicians, and kept each player’s personality and individual skills in mind as the work developed. This chamber cello concerto is the culmination of several years of working with cellist Felix Fan, and getting to know this fine musician’s dynamic playing style and unique energy.

The Wanton Brutality of a Tender Touch
(2006, 12 minutes, for piano)
Premiere by Blair McMillen at the Tenri Cultural Institute, New York,
September 8, 2006
Commissioned by Blair Mcmillen

When I composed The Wanton Brutality of a Tender Touch I wanted to make use of Blair McMillen's great technique and enthusiasm. The title was inspired by a recent televised brawl: one baseball player wrapped his arm around another player's waist, and drew him in close in order to deliver a wicked roundhouse punch. In one graceful series of movements, what looked like a fleeting moment of tenderness became an unbridled expression of fury. I was intrigued by the idea of creating a piece that borders on brutal, yet is delivered with Blair's flawless precision and accuracy.

Overvoltage Rumble
(2006, 13 minutes, for bass clarinet, percussion, sampler, guitar, cello, and contrabass)
Premiere by The Bang on a Can All-Stars at Merkin Concert Hall, New York City,
February 22, 2006
Commissioned by the People's Commissioning Fund

Overvoltage Rumble was written for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and composed specifically for these six fine musicians. The group's unique instrumentation (which includes amplified acoustic instruments and electric guitar) inspired me to explore a dynamic, shifting balance between the All-Stars' acoustic and electric sounds. I recently unearthed recordings I made of a vintage Serge analog synthesizer and an Arp 2600, which provided the jolt that would further electrify the piece. I sampled the recordings, which were a pack rat's stash of swooping, buzzing, and rattling analog synthesizer sounds, and arranged them across the keyboard of my sampler. This gave me immediate access to a huge variety of sounds, in a set-up that would have been impossible on the original instruments. Lisa Moore plays the synthesizer part live on the sampler: instead of fiddling with pesky patch cords (like we did in the old days) she can use her energy and highly developed piano skills to perform with the ensemble. In acoustic sections of this piece the musicians echo the rich, complex analog layers and drifting oscillators of these bygone analog beasts, and focus on one note while modulating timbre and small fluctuations of pitch. The bass and bass clarinet both duel (or rumble) with the synthesizer in solos that contrast acoustic sounds with the synthesizer's wild electronic flotsam and jetsam. The drums hold down a steady five against seven beat, using a clangorous collection of metal and a low-tuned snare drum. The technical savvy of the All-Stars allowed me to combine electronic sounds with acoustic sounds, and their great musicianship inspired me to push it a little further, incorporating polyrhythms, multiphonics, and many of the extended techniques that the musicians have mastered.

A Sideways Glance from an Electric Eye
(2006, 8 minutes, for a virtual version of Henry Cowell's Rhythmicon)
Released on "The Art of the Virtual Rhythmicon" Innova, 2006
Commissioned by Sonic Circuits

Working on the Virtual Rhythmicon was both addictive and challenging.  It was only after I finished the piece that I discovered that my Airport card was defective.  I wound up writing a piece that developed slowly, because the on-line Rhythmicon could not react quickly to my key commands, which in the end reinforced my fondness for the unpredictable qualities of broken instruments.  The piece shifts between pure overtones and detuned sounds generated from sustained sawtooth and triangle waves, inspired in part by a review that compared the original Rhythmicon to a reed organ.  I snuck in some recordings of cellist Joan Jeanrenaud's harmonic sweeps, introducing a human element that mingles with the machine.  The title, A Sideways Glance from an Electric Eye refers to the photoelectric cell used in the original Rhythmicon.  Thanks Joan, Philip, Nick, and Henry.

In This Dream that Dogs Me
Live music for choreographer Karole Armitage
(2005, 55 minutes, for percussion, sampler, guitar, and cello)
Premiere by Danny Tunick, Annie Gosfield, Roger Kleier, and Felix Fan
at the Duke Theater on 42nd Street, New York, November 30, 2005
Commissioned by the American Music Center's Live Music for Dance program
and the Rockefeller Foundation's MAP Fund

The music for "In This Dream that Dogs Me" was composed for this project, with the addition of some existing work. In developing the piece, Karole and I discussed the concepts of calligraphy on the page, representing the writer's hand and the expressive power of each individual character. Much of the music explores this dynamic relationship of the fluid, continuously changing movement of calligraphy in the foreground, supported by sustained, subtly shifting sounds in the background, representing individual calligraphic characters on a page. For example, the cello traces fluid, sinuous figures over a shifting tapestry of interwoven timbres consisting of bowed marimba, sustained guitar, and altered sampled string sounds. Melodic fragments reappear in altered forms, as characters and words do in language. All of the sampled sounds, played live on a keyboard, are altered forms of acoustic instruments, and are drawn from recordings of piano, strings, and percussion. Detuning and digital manipulation translates these sounds into their own musical language, just as calligraphy evolves and mutates over time. Parts are written expressly for each performer, and the ensemble makes use of its varied backgrounds, from classical traditions through free improvisation, rock, and blues. The musical materials in the three movements of this piece vary widely in density and character, ranging from languid dreamlike solos to intense rhythmic explosions for the ensemble. Within this varied context, there is always a focus on the movement of calligraphy and how these fluid, kinetic, characters wind and shift in an ever-changing musical environment.

Uphill Slides and Knockdown Dives
(2005, 12 minutes, for percussion and cello)
Premiere by Felix Fan and David Cossin
at the Muzik3 festival in San Diego, California, April 13, 2005
Commissioned by the Muzik3 Festival

Uphill Slides and Knockdown Dives was written for Felix Fan and David Cossin, two fine musicians who love to play together, The "uphill slides" refer to the many glissandi played on the cello. The "Knockdown Dives" make reference to a strong, loud, percussion part, that shifts from strong and steady to wild and wobbly

Wild Pitch
(2004, 13 min, for cello, percussion, and piano)
Premiere by Felix Fan, David Cossin, & Andy Russo,
Merkin Concert Hall, New York, December, 2004
Commissioned by the Muzik3 Festival, San Diego

Wild Pitch was written for Felix Fan, David Cossin, and Andrew Russo. Excited about working with this new trio, I wanted to create a piece that would emphasize the group's raw energy while incorporating many of the unusual techniques that each of the musicians has developed. The cello part clashes and slides between conventional tuning and quarter tones, fueled by Felix Fan's unique intensity and dynamic playing. Percussionist David Cossin plays a drum set augmented by his collection of Chinese cymbals, hand bells, a broken gong, and other collected objects, in a part that leaves plenty of room for interpretation and improvisation. Andrew Russo alternates tremolos with inside-the-piano techniques that use a baseball, steel guitar slide, and mallets, in a piano part equally influenced by Fats Domino and George Crumb. The title, Wild Pitch, reflects the piece's unpredictable sliding intervals and quarter tones, as well as the sense of a game gone momentarily out of control. The piece was finished during the 2004 world series, and Wild Pitch also refers to some very odd pitching that contributed to the historic Red Sox victory of the 2004 baseball season. A baseball-related title seemed especially appropriate after we discovered that Andy Russo's father, who was a catcher in the minor leagues, knew my distant cousin, Ruben Amaro, who was a shortstop, scout, and trainer for the Phillies.

Echoes of the Copper Octopus
(Reflective, Malleable, and Very Tenacious)
(2004, 13 min, percussion quartet)

Premiere by SO Percussion, Merkin Concert Hall, New York, December, 2004
Commissioned by the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust for Performance at Merkin Hall

When I first met with So Percussion to discuss this piece I was impressed by their ability to blend, a quality more commonly found in a string quartet than in a percussion quartet. Their common experiences and group dedication have resulted in an ensemble that I often considered to be one large instrument - kind of a percussion octopus. In order to emphasize this unity while creating timbral contrast I wrote for four very distinct groups of instruments: two orchestral setups (one pitched, one non-pitched for the most part) and two less traditional setups (one drum set with brake drums, one collection of oddly tuned metal and woodblocks). Echoes of the Copper Octopus is a four-man, eight-handed brew of melodic copper pipes, echoing bass drums, and crashing gongs. Glockenspiel blends and clashes with detuned metal. Marimba tangles with unpitched woodblocks. Timpani are used as resonators to alter the pitch and timbre of tam tams, almglocken, and finger cymbals, and an orchestral bass drum gets a kick in the pants from a kick drum.

Knuckleball

Brawl
(1998, 10 minutes, for saxophone quartet)
Premiere by ROVA Saxophone Quartet, San Francisco, June 1998
Recorded by ROVA, on Annie Gosfield's
"BURNT IVORY AND LOOSE WIRES" CLICK TO LISTEN Tzadik, 1998

Brawl was composed for Rova with the intention that they would leave their mark on it: using solo sections, cutting contests, and a combination of notated and loosely structured sections. The beginning of the piece is fully notated, and improvisational techniques are incorporated as the piece progresses. Brawl was composed during a residency at the Djerassi Foundation in Woodside, California. According to Forms in Music (J. Humphrey Anger, 1900) a "brawl" is "an old French dance in commom time, of a gay character." This "Brawl" is not exclusively in common time: in reference to Dr. Carl Djerassi's birthplace, it also uses compound Bulgarian rhythms. On June 4, 1998, (a few days after the piece was completed) a much-publicized brawl took place in New York City, in which 40 drunken firemen terrorized a Manhattan bar, fought tooth and nail, exposed themselves, and caused general mayhem.

Brooklyn, October 5, 1941
(1997, 4 minutes, for piano, baseballs, and baseball mitt)
Premiere by Guy Livingston, at Bruno Walter Auditorium, Lincoln Center, New York, December 1997
Recorded by Guy Livingston (one minute version) on "Don't Panic: Sixty Seconds for Piano", Wergo (Germany) and Harmonia Mundi (USA) 2001

When asked to compose a piano piece representing Brooklyn for a concert commemorating the 100th anniversary of the unification of the five boroughs of New York City, I was inspired by the 1941 Dodgers vs. Yankees baseball World Series, thus coining the phrase "World Serial Music". The piece is named for the date of the notorious fourth game of the series. My mother, born in Flatbush (in Brooklyn, New York) was a wildly enthusiastic 12-year old Dodgers fan at the time, and was recently reminiscing about watching this memorable but heartbreaking game at Ebbets Field. At the top of the ninth inning, a hair's breadth away from the end of the game, Dodgers pitcher Hugh Casey struck out Yankee Tommy Henrich with a pitch that should have ended the game in a 4-3 Dodger victory, which would have tied the series at two games apiece. Instead, the ball rolled under catcher Mickey Owen's glove, getting by him and allowing Henrich to reach first base safely. The Yanks went on to score four more runs to win, 7-4, and turn the series around. Shaken by their unexpected loss, the Dodgers lost again the next day, and the Yankees won yet another world championship.

Brooklyn, October 5, 1941 is performed with two baseballs and a catcher's mitt, which are used to strike both the piano keys and the strings and soundboard inside the piano. The score gives instructions to have additional baseballs available to the pianist, should he, like Mickey Owen, suffer the mishap of letting the ball get away. Playing the piano with baseballs and a catcher's mitt produces different sounds and tonalities than the traditional method of playing with the fingers: new groups of notes and rapid sequential chords become possible by rocking the balls both side-to-side and back-and-forth on the keyboard, and wider spans are reached with the aid of the mitt. Sounds also differ inside the piano, using the baseballs to mute strings and strike the metal soundboard under the lid. Speed is enhanced, and the technique of rocking the baseballs creates a distinctive machine-like flurry of notes and tremolos. Although I know of no previous works composed for piano and baseballs, this is a tip of the hat to the late Nicolas Slonimsky, who performed Chopin's Black Key Etude by rolling an orange on the piano keys.

Cram Jin Quotient (1997, 8 minutes, for keyboard sampler)
Premiere by Annie Gosfield at "The Alternative Schubertiade", American Opera Projects, New York, September 1997
Recorded by Annie Gosfield on "An Alternative Schubertiade" CRI, 1999

In the same way the the "Alternative Schubertiade" focused on old versus new ideas, Cram Jin Quotient was inspired by the idea of contrasting antiquated technologies with modern digital manipulation. I was influenced by the sounds of 78 RPM records, and used digital technology to evoke the effects of an old 78: the pops and hisses of surface noise, the warbling of a warped record, the occasional skip, and the gradual degeneration of sound caused by repeated playing. Schubert's Quintet in C Major also provided inspiration, in its harmonic content, melodic fragments, and four-movement structure. Cram Jin Quotient was recorded as it was performed, on a sampling keyboard with no overdubs.

In Rides the Dust (1997 version, 11 minutes, for chamber orchestra)
Premiere by Bang on a Can's Spit Orchestra, conducted by Brad Lubman, at the Kitchen, New York, May 1997

In Rides the Dust was originally composed for Prague's Agon Orchestra. In 1997 it was rewritten for Bang on a Can's Spit Orchestra. The title refers to the elusive qualities of dust: the way it appears out of nowhere, dissipates, and settles. Ideas dovetail and overlap; while a new section rides in, a previous idea scatters, dissipates, and, like dust, finally settles. When the same idea reappears, it is in an altered form, as if scattered, swept up, and reordered. Often a melodic or rhythmic pattern is established, and then left to spread out and disintegrate.

The piece combines traditional and non-traditional techniques: contrasting detuned and microtonally tuned instruments with equal-tempered instruments, for example, or combining a notated score with improvisational techniques. The strings all use some form of scordatura; a single string is re-tuned microtonally to a specific pitch on all of the strings except the second violins. Likewise, the woodwind and brass instruments have many (approximated) quarter-tone bends.

Four Roses (1997, 6 minutes, for cello and detuned piano)
Premiere by Ted Mook and Annie Gosfield, New York, March 1997
Recorded by Ted Mook and Annie Gosfield on
"BURNT IVORY AND LOOSE WIRES" CLICK TO LISTEN Tzadik, 1998

Three of the cello strings are tuned conventionally, and the "A" string is tuned 80 cents flat (just short of a semitone). This scordatura creates microtonal intervals between the open "A" string and the normally tuned strings. The keyboards use prepared piano and piano samples, tuned to a scale that is 32 notes per octave. "Four Roses" is the name of a rather inexpensive whiskey favored by my parents while they were courting. Although this piece was recorded three years before it was performed live, it has become a favorite that I have played with cellist Felix Fan, Joan Jeanrenaud, and others.

Freud
(1996, 4 minutes, composed with Roger Kleier For sampler and electric guitar)
Premiere by Annie Gosfield and Roger Kleier at the Audio Art Festival, Goethe Institute, Cracow, Poland, November 1996
Recorded by Annie Gosfield and Roger Kleier on
"BURNT IVORY AND LOOSE WIRES" Tzadik, 1998

Freud utilizes unconventional approaches to bowing. The keyboard samples are bowed vibraphone sounds. The electric guitar is played using prepared guitar techniques and an E-Bow (electronic bow), a device that bows the strings of the guitar magnetically.

In Rides the Dust (1996, 11 minutes, for flute, tenor sax, trumpet, trombone, percussion, piano, guitar, cello, and contrabass)
Premiere by Agon Orchestra, conducted by Petr Kofron, New Music Marathon, Prague, November 1996
(See notes above)

Blue Serge (1996, 5 minutes, for sampling keyboard)
Premiere by Annie Gosfield at Festival Solo in Lucerne, Switzerland, May 1996
Recorded by Annie Gosfield on "BURNT IVORY AND LOOSE WIRES" Tzadik, 1998 and on "Bring Your Own Walkman" Staalplaat, 1997

I recorded samples of a Serge modular synthesizer and an old Arp 2600 in Michael Murphy's studio in Saint Louis, with Murphy and LaDonna Smith twiddling the knobs along with me. These analog synth sounds were altered, modulated, combined, and sampled, which gave me access to several different sounds at once, and allowed me to create clusters and densities not possible on the original instruments.

Lost Night (1995, 12 minutes, for chamber orchestra and sampler)
Premiere by the Crosstown Ensemble, conducted by Eric Grunin, New York, December 1995
Commissioned by the Minnesota Composers Forum and the Crosstown Ensemble

The piece incorporates detuned strings and piano samples, using scales and tunings composed more by ear from random elements than strict microtonal systems. Generally, if all goes well, the tuning has a life of its own and the instruments' detuning become more pronounced by the end of the piece. Open strings are re-tuned in increments of cents as indicated in the score, and the string parts are primarily open strings or harmonics.

My fascination with detuned sounds started at age 14 on a riverboat in New Orleans; the sheer power of a wildly out of tune calliope blasting out "Basin Street Blues" and "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans" gave those old standards a new life for me. The same can be said for a brass band in Oaxaca's zocalo, and for a guitarist named Wichita picking an out of tune version of "Wildwood Flower" at the Johnny Mack Brown High School, tempering sentimental cliches with a richness only achieved by beating pitches and wild card tunings.

The Manufacture of Tangled Ivory
(1995, 11 minutes, for percussion, sampler, guitar, cello, contrabass)
Premiere by The Annie Gosfield Ensemble, Festival of Radical New Jewish Culture, New York, September 1994, revised version premiered by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, at Great Performers at Lincoln Center, New York, May 1995
Recorded by the Bang on a Can Allstars on "Cheating, Lying Stealing" Sony Classical, 1996, and on "Bang on a Can Classic" Cantaloupe Records, 2002
Recorded by The Annie Gosfield Ensemble on Gosfield's
"BURNT IVORY AND LOOSE WIRES" CLICK TO LISTEN Tzadik, 1998

I wrote The Manufacture of Tangled Ivory shortly after moving to New York. I was thinking of my grandmother, who had moved to New York from Poland 70 years earlier, and had worked in sweatshops and factories. As to the title, "The Manufacture" refers to my grandmother's factory days, "Tangled" describes the detuning of the piano sounds and their displacement on the keyboard, and "Ivory" refers to the piano keys themselves. I used a sampler (an instrument similar to a digital tape recorder connected to a piano keyboard) to reproduce piano and prepared piano sounds and to alter their pitch, duration, and timbre. The sampled sounds vary in density and change within the piece from multiple layers of detuned piano sounds, for example, to a single piano harmonic or a lone snap of the sustain pedal. The piece incorporates some elements of improvisation, including solos for the guitar and bass.

Second Avenue Junkman
(1993, 4 minutes, for piano, guitar, and percussion)
Premiere by The Annie Gosfield Ensemble, at the Festival of Radical New Jewish Culture, New York, September 1993
Recorded by Annie Gosfield, Roger Kleier, and Greg Cohen on "Irving Stone Memorial Concert", Tzadik, 2004

Second Avenue Junkman was written for my band's performance at the first Festival of Radical Jewish Culture, curated by John Zorn, at the Knitting Factory in New York. It's a simple tune in C minor that was inspired by stories of my grandfather, Abraham Starobin, looking for scrap metal on Second Avenue with his donkey cart and his donkey (who was named Nickolai and stabled on Prince street!) He wasn't called a junkman, he was called a scrap metal dealer, but "Second Avenue Scrap Metal Dealer" just doesn't have the same ring. Many decades later, I moved to Second Avenue, and although it's changed drastically, and the Yiddish theaters that he used to frequent have disappeared, I still look out the window and think about him.

Nickolaievski Soldat
(1993, 7 minutes, for sampler, guitar, and percussion)
Premiere by The Annie Gosfield Ensemble, Festival of Radical New Jewish Culture, New York, September 1993
Recorded by The Annie Gosfield ensemble on
"BURNT IVORY AND LOOSE WIRES" Tzadik, 1998

This work was named for my great-grandfather, who was conscripted into the Czar Nickolai's army at age 11 from the village of Konotop in the Ukraine. At the time it was common for young Jewish boys to be kidnapped and forced into military service. Keyboards use detuned piano sounds, in which scales vary from octave to octave, and different microtonal scales are juxtaposed for each of several layers on the keyboard.