A time for “firsts”

There are some updates to the lstn page of the site. First of all, Posso Volare! can be found here and the live premiere recording of Flux Flummoxed can be found here. These are all very exciting recordings/projects for me primarily because they  Posso Volare! was my first foray into writing for a solo instrument with digital playback (or what is archaically known as ‘tape’). I have done some things with electronics/fixed media, but never with this much rigorous attention to synchronicity. Yohanan did an excellent job and was especially kind to allow a few studio recording (DIY-studio-recording) sessions to get a better take of the piece that surpassed the technical problems of the live performance. Flux Flummoxed is my first long form, multi-movement piece. It was an engaging process and was especially challenging. One of the best parts of the process was working with Ben Sung and Jihye Chang. They are patient, loyal and ambitious performers. Can’t wait to hear the studio recording (which they will begin recording in August). There are four movements to the piece with a break only between the third and fourth movement : I. Entropic March II. Momentum Perpetuum III. Electrostatic IV. Flux Capacitor. Below are the program notes for the pieces:

“Posso Volare!: Originally written for solo violin during the Alba International Music Festival in Italy about four years ago. It recently underwent some modifications to fit within the stylistic trappings of the tape and instrument genre. The title is a result of my bad Italian. I wanted to say ‘posso avere’ when asking for some acqua frizzante, but I said “posso volare.” The waitress humored me by pointing outside. Which is true, flying is really easier to do outside. “Hmmm. What a great title,” I thought. It turns out that the more I work with this piece the title is beyond autobiographical poetics. The piece does illustrate a semi-conscious desire to fly on behalf of both performance forces. At times this desire is fulfilled by one force doing what the other cannot do. Where one’s limitations begin, the other can take over and push the music somewhere else. Just like the violinist has physical/acoustic limitations (register, amplitude, timbre, etc.) the “faux-chamber” ensemble found within the electronics has limitless timbral/registral possibilities. Yet, the electronics are limited in the emotive spontaneity and flexibility that is only found in the innate “humanness” of the violin.” (April 2010)

“Flux Flummoxed: As I began this project I was preoccupied with the idea of the music moving in and out of stylistic boundaries—as if transported and transformed from its original form. However, it seemed that this movement inevitably became frustrated and/or undercut by interjecting gestures, sudden stillness, quick fades, or any combination thereof. As this ‘frustration’ of thematic/stylistic became more apparent—and became a governing factor of the work—I tried to piece together some short phrase that encapsulates this idea. The words flux flummoxed kept coming to mind. Put together as a phrase it seems almost like some non-sensical post-modern bricolage, but nevertheless kept popping up in my mind. Then, as chance would have it, I came across a 2006 article by scientist Phil Stauffer from Ground Water (a hydrogeology journal) with the title “Flux Flummoxed: A Proposal for Consistent Usage.” From this article and my amateurish look into physics and electromagnetism, a title was born (for which I thank Phil Stauffer for his like-minded cleverness).  Each of the movements represents some aspect of flux not as literal signifiers for extra-musical scientific phenomena (an impossible task); but rather, as sonic explorations that were aptly titled after the movements were composed. And, as a homage to the idyllic days of Velcro^TM, pegged pants and time-traveling DeLoreans, the last movement (Flux Capacitor) fills my obligatory shout-out to popular culture that seems to run rampant in the ever-so-tightly-knit circle of contemporary music culture.” (April 2009)