Tag Archives: projects

A bear whispers



In times of difficulty and danger, our true friends are revealed to us.

In June, 2017, ensemble IN EXTENSIO performed my “A bear whispers” (for clarinet and camping paraphernalia) in a concert, entitled BacKpacK MusiC, at le Petit Outremont in Montreal. A bear whispers is a musical recounting of Aesop’s (7th century BC) fable, Two Travellers and a Bear. The music was created specifically for this event, featuring the premieres of several new works developed for an all-ages audience.

After a long hike, two friends decide to build a campfire and rest. Suddenly, a bear comes upon them. One of the hikers quickly climbs up a tree in an effort to save himself from the bear. The other hiker, feeling he has no other option, falls to the ground and plays dead. The bear sniffs out the fallen hiker from head to toe and appears to whisper something to him. The hiker holds his breath because it is said that bears do not eat dead animals. The bear finishes sniffing around and then leaves. The hiker in the tree climbs down and asks the other what the bear whispered. The bear said, “in the future, never travel with friends who desert you in times of danger”.

BacKpacK MusiC is a multimedia concert based on a narrative featuring two travelling musicians from the digital age. The musicians undertake a journey, passing from district to district and city to city with merely one backpack replete with new music.
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BacKpacK MusiC est un concert multimédia basé sur une trame narrative mettant en scène deux musiciennes de l’ère numérique voyageant de quartier en quartier, de ville en ville, avec littéralement pour seul baggage un sac à dos plein de nouvelles musiques.

IN EXTENSIO https://www.inextensio.ca

Working song and the last dead leftover



“Working song and the last dead leftover” (for amplified string quartet and karlax digital musical instrument) combines the classical string quartet ensemble with electroacoustic sound, which is played (produced and modulated) by a new type of 21st-century electronic musical instrument, known as the karlax.

This new composition was composed for the Penderecki String Quartet, who premiered the new work on 2 June, 2016, at the Perimeter Institute (Waterloo, Ontario). This first performance was part of an engaging concert theme that explored the integration of the string quartet, which is by far one of the most significant instrument combinations of classical music, and innovative music technologies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As a result, at the heart of this concert theme was a meeting between the arts and sciences – old and new – presented at a leading institute for theoretical physics.

In “Working song”, one of my creative goals was to “fracture the acousmatic” (Adrian Moore, 2008). That is to say, my composition supplants the traditions of studio-produced electronic music by the live control of sound synthesised in real time. Unlike the studio tradition, in which sound is “fixed” for future replication in a concert, musical sound is entirely generated anew with each performance of Working song. At the same time, in my composition, I adapt acousmatic techniques and tools, which “allow the creation of sounds that transcend the physical constraints of instrumental and vocal musical practice” (John Young, 2015), to a new form of embodied (gesture-dependent) electronic musical performance.

Two aspects comprise the title of this composition: “working song” and “last dead leftover”. In the case of “working song”, this facet can be understood as both implementing/exploiting features of musical song and music for singing while working (e.g., work chant). The two primary materials (above) are brought together in an effort to showcase a perpetual melody and at the same time, evoke the sonic environment of repetitive, mechanical labour (come un meccanismo di precisione [György Ligeti, 1968]). With respect to the “last dead leftover”, I take a philosophical viewpoint regarding the present-day global population movements. Through my art, I wish to highlight the importance of recognising the humanity of migrants who are labouring to escape civil unrest. Furthermore, in popular media culture (e.g., The Last of Us, The Leftovers), I detect trends that appear to interrogate this humanity – nurturing fears of annihilation (political, economic, social, etc.). Working song was composed in an effort to challenge these fears – calling forth melody from incessant noise, as a metaphor for the inherent humanity of a people, no matter their origins.

For more information and implementations of the karlax, please see:

My Vimeo Karlax “Album”

Karlax developer and manufacturer (and links to the karlax community)
dafact.com