1. When Blood Turns To Bone
Critical Excerpt: 2:07-5:00
Year: 2021
Size: 28:12
This 28 minute composition, released by Fallen Moon Recordings in March 2021, uses analog synthesizers, cello, and processed recordings of a bowed cymbal. I solely composed, performed, arranged, and edited all material, and Andrew Weathers mastered the track. For the tonal sections, I began by recording an improvisation over an electronics track, and then continued with thematic development from that material. Thematic material is shared and developed between instruments, both texturally and harmonically, while being slowly transformed throughout the piece.
The album is a representation of metaphysical transformation and the potential for radical healing. It is an example of compositional techniques I employ to elucidate processes of change. Throughout the piece, I arranged electronic and acoustic sounds to seemingly meld into one another to accentuate these themes. Initially inspired by the re-growth of bone after a break, I used this starting point to dualistically engage themes of physical and emotional healing. The sonic progression represents a cycle of continual change, constantly shifting and delighting in ambiguity and the discomfort that can accompany the experience of change. There are two names for each stage, each pair representing physical/emotional perspectives.
Four sections elide into one another:
1. incidence/prayer
2. dissolution/everything falls apart
**gathering of elements**
3. reconstitution/alchemy
4. coalescence/re-cognition
2. Dance Exhibit – Pillar Section
Critical Excerpt: 00:15-3:00
Year: 2019
Size: 3:54
Dance Exhibit, performed at Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco, CA, is a site specific, 35-40 minute long, dance performance envisioned by choreographer Lauren Simpson in collaboration with the dancers, two visual artists, and myself as composer/sound artist. I composed and performed the full score for the performance, and managed related technical elements. This piece is an example of interdisciplinary work, tailoring a composition to a site specific environment and choreography needs, and fusing multiple sonic techniques.
For this section of the performance, my sound sources were electronic synthesizers alongside sounds produced by the building’s steel beams, combining installation elements into performance. Wanting to engage the building’s structure and acoustic properties, I attached audio transducers to several of the steel beams in the center of the floor, essentially turning them into ceiling to floor audio speakers. The beams amplified and filtered pre-recorded sounds, producing the ringing sounds heard throughout the video. The recordings played through the beams are also sounds made via the building itself. I activated handrails, beams, etc., with my hands and recorded the results with a contact mic.
In addition to highlighting the acoustic properties of the building, the score creates a sonic environment that spotlights the dancers, but does not confine their movement. Each section consists of a series of events that follow changes in the dance, but does not adhere to strict time. This allowed me as a performer to draw out different emphases with each performance, using my experience as an improviser to adapt to sounds and interactions happening in the space in real time.
The synthesizer’s unmetered percussive sounds emphasize the dancers’ movements while the long tones interact with the sounds from the steel beams. The immersive effect of the electronic sounds playing through a six-channel speaker system combined with the activated steel beams creates a sonic illusion, confounding one’s sense of space. While I highlight the dancers’ movements during performance, the dance and score are not synced, with different interactions occurring in each performance in a John Cage/Merce Cunningham manner. Themes of hierarchies between people and objects and the neighborhood’s history influenced the development of the project.
3. Latitudes Presents SO AR
Critical Excerpt: 13:00-17:10
Year: 2021
Size: 23:47
This is a site-specific, improvised performance by SO AR, my duo with percussionist Robert Lopez, commissioned by the Other Minds’ Latitudes series.
In preparation, Robert and I practiced multiple ways of engaging with natural environments, using methods such as textural and long-form development alongside repetition. Aware of the effects of our own presence, the performance employs careful listening to mindfully incorporate our sound into the space as opposed to simply playing over the local soundscape. Different sections showcase various approaches to this. Some sections are more sparse, where we blend into the environment. The critical excerpt shows our progression into a section of higher intensity where we take the influence from our surroundings to develop material and become a momentary focal point.
Playing both a modular synthesizer and amplified cello, I use the electronic sounds as inspiration for my technical approach to the cello, confounding the sounds of the two by utilizing extended cello techniques, timbral development, and harmonics.
The performance site on the previous military base in Alameda, CA was a source of thematic inspiration. The site has a contested and complicated history of ownership, and blends a protected natural ecosystem and bird sanctuary with urban decay and development. We drew from these coexisting tensions throughout the performance.
Supplemental Material
4. Fervent – For Two Bodied Souls
Critical Excerpt: 1:44 (bar 28) to 4:07 (bar 61, 2nd repeat)
Year: 2018
Size: 6:01
I composed this two-person piece for its premiere as part of an evening-length multimedia performance I co-created with percussionist Robert Lopez as an extension of our duo project. Fervent was independently composed by me, and performed by both of us. It is an example of using compositional and instrumental techniques to create a sense of sonic immersion and transformation.
Fervent uses intertwined polyrhythmic progressions to create an enveloping palate of sound. The two performers play interlocking patterns that create a sense of multiple, continually shifting layers, which is accentuated by keeping the instrument un-dampened. The first two-thirds of the piece moves towards greater complexity, and after a climax that begins at bar 52, the sound slowly becomes more sparse, accenting the rhythmic interplay from a different perspective. The name alludes to the recognition of the players as separate beings but playing as one to produce something greater than is possible individually.
The piece is directly influenced by my studies of the music of Candomblé. While it does not employ any rhythms used in the tradition, studying Candomblé drumming gave me a foundation for composing the intersecting rhythmic lines. The un-dampened sound combined with the continual development is an example of techniques I employed as inspired by the role of ritual and sound immersion in Candomblé music performance.
5. Dust to Dust – Mojave Sound Art
Year: 2018
Size: 2:40
This is documentation of my installation Dust to Dust adapted for the 2018 Incantations Sound Art festival in Wonder Valley, CA. This is the fourth iteration of the installation, which originally premiered in the Signal Flow festival at Mills College in 2013. I am responsible for all technical and sonic aspects of its development, and received assistance in the installation process.
The installation uses audio recordings transformed by large light bulbs to create a new, immersive environment of sound and light. It consists of audio recordings playing through 750 watt light bulbs that I rewired to be able to power them with audio amplifiers, thus transforming the bulbs into audio speakers. Recordings of my spoken voice play through the bulbs. A SuperCollider program triggers and controls the duration of the audio recordings and how frequently they play. The program utilizes a randomized range of settings that cause the light bulbs to come off and on with no set pattern, much like independent variables in a natural environment.
While the phrasing and cadence of speech remain, the filaments and glass of the bulbs naturally filter the sounds while simultaneously metamorphosing them into light. Together, the bulbs create a new sonic and physical environment, a community of altered voices formed from the remnants of the original recordings.
Being the most intimate and personal rendition of this piece, the audio consists of recordings of reflective, often painful, memories of the people closest to and most influential to me. The bulbs encapsulate a variety of memories focused on themes of working towards acceptance of loss and death. The piece reflects on relationships and emotional responses to sonic spaces while demonstrating the potential to create new possibilities from past experiences and pre-existing structures.