Mariel Roberts Nonextraneous Sounds innova 247 mariel roberts cello 1 three shades, foreshadows andy akiho 10:24 2 teaser sean friar 12:26 3 saint arc daniel wohl 8:05 4 flutter alex mincek 12:01 5 formations tristan perich 19:48 Three Shades, Foreshadows Three Shades, Foreshadows is a cello solo with stereo digital playback written for Mariel Roberts. The live solo part is often shadowed, or mimicked by the other three electronic parts. The title and much of the material was inspired by Auguste Rodin’s sculpture “The Three Shades” – a sculpture composed of three identical bronze casts positioned so that the viewer can observe multiple perspectives simultaneously. My goal was to create a similar effect acoustically while blurring any distinction between the live performer and the three digital playback parts. Every live sound that is being created by the performer is also present in the electronics part, and every available sound of the electronics part is a sample from the acoustic cello. This was achieved by recording Mariel executing isolated percussive sounds across the entire range of the instrument. These samples included scratch sounds, col legno battuto attacks, pizzicati, snap pizzicati, clothespin-prepared string pizzicati, knocks/slaps on the wood and strings, and perpendicular bowing on the bridge. The samples were then combined to form impossible, superhuman hyper-rhythms in the electronics part, thus creating a quartet of mimicking shadows with the live cello part. The piece begins with pizzicati on strings prepared with mini-clothespins attached near the base of the fingerboard – a technique that was introduced to me by composer colleague Christopher Stark in the summer of 2011. The preparations create bell-like tones that sound very similar to tuned gongs. Throughout the rest of the work, one clothespin remains on the highest string, so that the open-stringed pizzicato serves as a recurring gamut. To replicate the spatial relationship of different angles in Rodin’s sculpture, the electronic playback makes use of panning/stereo effects to resemble three different acoustic perspectives. The live cello is acoustically in the center, while the digital playback is spread in three-dimensions between extreme left, right, and center. This further enhances the kaleidoscopic effect where the performer and electronics interact to move the audience’s focus and perspective back and forth throughout the piece. – Andy Akiho Teaser Whether in music, or story-telling, or dating, a good tease is always about giving just enough of something to keep the one being teased – if not a bit ruffled and challenged – tantalized, and drawn into what the one teasing is going to do next. Like that, Teaser thrives on acknowledging the expectations it sets up and toying with them. It idiosyncratically leads the listener along a path filled with surprise, sleight of hand, abrupt about-faces, and mischievous reinterpretations of its own material. One of the many aspects of Mariel’s playing that impresses me is how effortlessly and comfortably she performs music of vastly different idioms and emotional content; she has no difficulty shifting between complex experimental music, spare minimalist, standard repertoire, and folk music, all in a single concert. In fact, she enjoys it. I have a similar taste for navigating through a large palette of sounds and musical languages when I compose, and it seemed natural that my piece for Mariel would take advantage of our shared omnivorous interests. The result is a piece that at times sounds coquettishly bluesy, other times naïvely simple, and sometimes, outright frenzied. It is a somewhat theatrical piece in this way – the more the performer is able to exaggerate the sudden stylistic and affectual changes, the more successful it is, and the more the sensation of the “tease” is felt. In addition to all this, Teaser calls for a great deal of virtuosity on the part of the performer. Almost every attack involves a double stop, and that is often only the skeleton of what the performer must play. The piece also makes frequent use of techniques such as playing pizzicato notes with the left hand while bowing with the right, playing glissandi at different rates on different strings, and harmonic “flickering.” – Sean Friar Saint Arc The exploration of a specific timbre frequently lies at the heart of many of my pieces. I like to think that there exists an entire world within a sound - one that I can try to draw out, re-imagine and bring to life through the compositional process. In Saint Arc I derived the musical material from very faint noises: the bow almost silently brushing against the strings, as well as the harmonics that accidentally pop out as the cellist’s hand glides across the neck of the instrument. To me, the different gestures in the piece are a magnification and reinterpretation of these noises. The electronic element, which consists of prerecorded and processed cello, enhances, distorts or offers an alternate perspective on these two sounds. – Daniel Wohl *The piece was originally commissioned by the Transit ensemble with a grant from Commissioning Music/USA Flutter “Flutter” is a piece about restless energy; mental and physical. It is constructed with a number of rapidly oscillating gestures that gradually accumulate and then pass quickly and abruptly from one to another. As the order of these gestures continually fluctuates, many other parameters are rapidly varied as well. – Alex Mincek Overwhelming activity finally gives way to calm. Formations I am interested in the threshold between the abstract world of computation and the physical world around us. My compositions for acoustic instruments with 1-bit electronic music explore a sonic and conceptual space. I began exploring with 1-bit music in 2004: the foundations of electronic sound. The simplest electronic tones can be created by sending on and off pulses of electricity to a speaker, effecting an oscillation at the desired pitch. These pulses are represented digitally in binary as 1-bit information, where a 1 or 0 signifies the corresponding electrical state. When working with 1-bit waveforms, data is equivalent to sound; no higher-level translation is needed. The 1-bit tones are generated by microchips that I program, which become instruments in these duets between human musicians and code. Here the most basic method of electronic sound production couples with similarly basic methods of acoustic sound production in classical instruments: vibrating strings, resonating wind chambers, oscillating percussive objects, etc. While 1-bit sound is also the palette of aggressive electric alarm clocks, I find its primitive timbre inspiringly fresh and mysteriously organic when combined with these traditional instruments. These works are about these relationships between simple sonic systems and the point found at their intersection. – Tristan Perich Recorded by Stephen McLaughlin; mixed and mastered by Jeffrey Svatek, at EMPAC Studios in Troy, NY. Design: Malcontent Portrait photograph: Tod Seelie Innova Director: Philip Blackburn Operations Manager: Chris Campbell Innova is supported by an endowment from the McKnight Foundation Special thanks The Manhattan School of Music, the Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund of the New York Community Trust, and Dan Grabois for making possible the commissioning of the pieces for this album. Argeo Ascani for sharing his wisdom, understanding, and dedication to excellence throughout the recording and production process. Matt Aronoff for his daily inspiration, strength, patience, love, and extraordinary commitment to beauty. Alex, Andy, Daniel, Sean, and Tristan for their beautiful pieces. Holley Roberts, Mackenzie Roberts, and Nathaniel Roberts, for their unfailing love and support. Jennifer Arnold, Richard Slavich, Alan Harris, and Fred Sherry- unbelievable teachers and mentors, for giving me the tools and inspiration to pursue a life in music.