audio excerpt: MP3 format
recorded live 17 February 2000, Cantor Center for the Arts, Stanford University
Matthew Burtner, soprano saxophone

Questions and Fissures explores the fusion of divergent musical elements. The two loudspeakers present independent voices, kept separate throughout the piece, while the saxophone provides another layer, distinct from the electronic world. Each element pursues its own path of development, corresponding with the others only at the broadest levels of form. In spite of all the ways in which these materials attempt to achieve independence, we hear one piece, and not three -- each layer informs and enriches our hearing of the others.

This piece is the second in a series of works which use speech sounds as both timbral material and organizing forces. The electronic component is composed entirely of heavily processed recordings of my speaking voice. While the speech never quite becomes intelligible, it animates the sound and provides rhythmic structure. In turn, the saxophone part is derived from a rhythmic transcription of the spoken text. Like the speech sounds themselves, the transcribed rhythms never appear intact. Instead, I use them as the basis for a series of variations and distortions.

Questions and Fissures is dedicated to Matthew Burtner.

Performances:
2004.11.02: International Computer Music Conference, Miami, FL
2004.02.20: Stanford University, Stanford CA
Griffin Campbell, soprano saxophone
 
2003.09.25: UMBC, Baltimore, MD
2003.02.07: Technosonics III Festival, Charlottesville, VA
2002.09.23: Musikhgskolan i Pitea, Pitea, Sweden
2000.07.23: International Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Darmstadt, Germany
2000.04.22: CNMAT, Berkeley, CA
2000.02.17: Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, CA
Matthew Burtner, soprano saxophone

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