Journaling 2

Violinist and composer Cornelius Dufallo began his “Journaling” concert series in 2009 as a way to document the work of living composers and contribute to a repertoire of 21st century violin music. In 2012, innova Recordings released Journaling, the first album created out of these concerts and now comes the follow-up, Journaling 2.

Bringing together elements of electronics, extended techniques, chance techniques, and digital interactivity, the pieces here were composed by Kinan Azmeh, Guy Barash, Missy Mazzoli, Raven Chacon, Armando Bayolo, and Dufallo himself. Azmeh’s “How Many Would It Take” draws inspiration from the composer’s long visit to his home country of Syria; Bayolo’s “Tisch” takes off from Bach’s “Toccata in F Major”; and Dufallo’s “Reverie” expresses the unpredictable and often contradictory thoughts encountered in dreams.

For the past two decades, Dufallo has performed and promoted new music, as a soloist and as a collaborator. Dufallo has been a member of several notable ensembles, including the Flux Quartet (1996-2001), Ne(x)tworks (2003-2011), and ETHEL (2005-2012). Currently he performs as a member of the Secret Quartet.

In the performance of his own work, Dufallo was described as “an intensely introspective thinker who is committed to visual communication as he is to the purely musical” by the Washington Post. His work with musical technology illustrates “how much amplification can expand the instrument’s palette. Far from robbing the violin of its beauty, electronics add textural elements and graduations of timbre that the acoustic instrument cannot approximate” (The New York Times).