For all your multi-sensory needs (or at least the ones involving vision and audition)…
La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura on film
Miranda Cuckson and I have collaborated on performances of Luigi Nono’s landmark composition La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura (1989), for violin and electronics, since 2011. In 2020, we worked with a pair of Miranda’s colleagues in the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), director/choreographer/dancer Zack Winokur and choreographer/dancer Julia Eichten, to explore the ideas about movement, space, and distance inherent in Nono’s conception, and to develop a subtly staged version of the piece. As part of that process, Miranda memorized some forty-plus minutes of challenging violin music, along with a substantial vocabulary of movement. (I, on the other hand, continue to sit very still at the electronics, in keeping with a role that I understand to include serving as a kind of model listener for the unfolding music).
Our first opportunity to perform this new interpretation was at the Clark Museum in Williamstown, MA, in August 2020. As part of our week at the Clark, Rafe Scobey-Thal recorded several rehearsals. The film he created from that material is not so much a document of the performance as it is an additional layer of visual interpretation. Each of the six sections of Nono’s music is presented through a distinct style of camerawork and editing, and the outdoor setting, the sounds of the natural environment, and the changing daylight feature prominently in the finished production. AMOC is making the film freely available online through February, and the link includes some additional commentary by Miranda and I about Nono’s music and our collaboration.
This is also an opportunity to mention that Miranda has a released a lovely new album, VILÁG, featuring works by Béla Bartók, Franco Donatoni, and Manfred Stahnke, along with new compositions by Stewart Goodyear and Aida Shirazi. Miranda’s playing is impeccable, and I strongly encourage you to give it a listen.
The Algorithm with Network for New Music
In my last newsletter I described work on an upcoming structured-improvisation project titled The Algorithm. The premiere of that work is now fast approaching, with performances in Philadelphia on February 26 and 27th. (The link includes complete details and ticketing). I’m grateful to Network for New Music for commissioning and presenting this project, and very much looking forward to working with Chelsea Meynig (flute), Tom Piercy (clarinet), Carlos Santiago (violin), and Tom Kraines (cello) on the performances.
The core of The Algorithm is a software program which can generate a near-infinite sequence of four-page scores, integrating text and graphics that serve as prompts for, and constraints upon, improvised performance. There are three ways I’m thinking about this:
as a continuation of my work exploring approaches to music-making which combine aspects of clear compositional signature with improvisational imagination and freedom;
as a way to articulate, encode, and examine some of my personal aesthetic preferences and strategies, and to investigate their possibilities and limits as they are near-endlessly recombined via software; and
as a commentary about the ubiquity of algorithms in contemporary society, and particularly the negative consequences of tools which serve to deflect transparency and accountability even as they amplify falsehood and bias.
That last point seems even more urgent with the announcement of the ChatGPT service and similar projects within the past few weeks. Hopefully The Algorithm embodies a humane mode of collaboration between software and people - not least because my responsibility in both creation and rehearsal is to make it so.
At the workbench
Having spent time working on generative graphics for the Algorithm score, I thought it might be interesting to develop related (though by no means identical) generative animations to accompany the performance. It’s an opportunity to reinforce aspects of the musical structure for the audience, and to create play between mathematical abstraction and human-perceptible pattern that speaks to the themes of the project.
(Yes, I may have watched The Matrix a few times over the years).
It’s also a chance to drop in a few not-exactly-subliminal messages about our brave new world of algorithmic social media timelines, recommendation engines, generative art and writing tools, and the surveillance and data-collection regimes that enable and fuel them.
And on a sunnier note, I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to experiment with a wider and bolder color palette than I’ve tried in previous animation projects.
Even more to share
For readers in Philly, I’m playing music with composer/improviser/guitarist Carlos Cotallo-Solares at Century (1350 S 29th St), Wednesday, March 8th at 8 pm. We’ve been rehearsing and recording together on the regular - stay tuned for more news from the two of us.
Bridges of Königsberg is contributing a track to the upcoming FTAM-100 compilation, a celebration of the mighty FTAM record label’s 100th and final release. Nearly every artist with a release on FTAM is featured in some capacity on the comp (my previous work with the label includes neural goldberg’s recent Still Life With Juggling Brick as well a couple of different BoK records). It’s going to be a ripper, and I encourage you to pre-order now.
Speaking of the century mark, LV2MKRT just released episode 100 - and celebrates our entry into triple digits with an all-new, all-different logotone. (Plus, y’know, our customary improvised music for electronics and double bass). Available in (almost) all the places you get podcasts.
Nonce
For heavier distortion, try cartoonist John Granzow’s technique. Thanks as always for reading, and hope to see you February 26 & 27 for the premiere of The Algorithm -
yours,
Christopher
Christopher Burns
http://sfsound.org/~cburns