Flute, Electric Violin, Piano, Harp, Cello
(2022)
10 minutes
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The idea for this piece came to me one day when I opened up the weather app on my phone, and the weather for the day was forecast as “smoke.” There was something about it being officially on the app that struck me - so quickly, the presence of forest fires and the smoke they create was expected, even normalized. In fact, people started calling smoke a season between summer and fall. I find this reality to be very distressing and sad, and I hope that we humans are able to make changes in time to save the beauty that is around us.
The piece is divided into 6 continuous movements: 1) Cool, 2) Warm, 3) Hot, 4) Fire, 5) Smoke, and 6) Rain.
Inspired by the virtuosity and daring of these outstanding performers, I utilized my full palette of extended techniques with the hopes of conjuring these ideas in a visceral and evocative way. The score takes a minute to soak up, it is visually somewhat unusual. I created my own notation for some of the techniques (such as crumpling paper or throwing ping pong balls), and communicated with the performers about ways that I could make it easy for them to read and execute.
The piece is intended to be performed as a multi-media event. The lengths of the movements are determined by time elapsed - there are markers in the music for each minute. These markers correspond to events in a video that has been created for the piece by San Francisco digital artist and videographer Joe Moore. The images match the dynamic, restless quality of the sounds, and both reach for the extremes of beauty and alarm.
Flute, Electric Violin, Piano, Harp, Cello
(2022)
10 minutes
▶️Watch
The idea for this piece came to me one day when I opened up the weather app on my phone, and the weather for the day was forecast as “smoke.” There was something about it being officially on the app that struck me - so quickly, the presence of forest fires and the smoke they create was expected, even normalized. In fact, people started calling smoke a season between summer and fall. I find this reality to be very distressing and sad, and I hope that we humans are able to make changes in time to save the beauty that is around us.
The piece is divided into 6 continuous movements: 1) Cool, 2) Warm, 3) Hot, 4) Fire, 5) Smoke, and 6) Rain.
Inspired by the virtuosity and daring of these outstanding performers, I utilized my full palette of extended techniques with the hopes of conjuring these ideas in a visceral and evocative way. The score takes a minute to soak up, it is visually somewhat unusual. I created my own notation for some of the techniques (such as crumpling paper or throwing ping pong balls), and communicated with the performers about ways that I could make it easy for them to read and execute.
The piece is intended to be performed as a multi-media event. The lengths of the movements are determined by time elapsed - there are markers in the music for each minute. These markers correspond to events in a video that has been created for the piece by San Francisco digital artist and videographer Joe Moore. The images match the dynamic, restless quality of the sounds, and both reach for the extremes of beauty and alarm.
