FRIEZE (2011, FOR 16 OR MORE GUITARS)

Frieze was commissioned for the annual SU Classical Guitar Festival in 2011. Guidelines for the commission were that the music had to include as many guitarists as possible and allow guitarists of any level of proficiency to participate. The cover art shown the working score of Frieze.

This composition is largely organized around the sound of monolithic sections of dense texture. But subtle changes take place within the textures that eventually evolve into dramatic changes in dynamics and density. This piece is an exploration of concepts found in the jazz idiom. 

Premiere performance by the University of New Mexico Percussion Ensemble, Christopher Shultis, director.

The composition appears in full on "Electroacoustic Music VII" (2002) from Neuma Records. The PC-based, real-time version of Iannis Xenakis’s UPIC System was used to create the sounds.

Performed by the HELIX! New Music Ensemble on April 6, 2014 at Rutgers University. Copyright   

© 2014 by Neuma Records & Publications.

Using Csound, with no graphic user interface, I worked from my abstract graphic score that articulated the primary behavioral aspects of the chaotic system, which allowed me to "improvise" the sound combinations within very specific guidelines so that they correctly projected structural meaning.

The composition requires the use of artificial frets (available from the publisher) for the purpose of achieving quarter tones on the guitar. All pitches of the music, including the quarter tones, are arrived at by graphic score measurements created for each part using very specific guidelines.

Composed for the Hoffmann/Goldstein duo, it was performed throughout the United States and on a European tour.  Sounds were treated as sonic objects and "processed" in various ways to make them increasingly meaningful in their contexts. The image is an analysis of how this happens over time.

This excerpt is used with permission from Neuma Records. The full composition can be heard on New Music Series 4. The music is an interpretation of all the detail I hear in a small moment of time as it is stretched into a monolithic exploration.