Track 1:
Shadow of Wings
for CPU and piano 2020 (48 mins)
Excerpt:
Program notes
SOW is a 48 min. piece for electronics and piano. The form of the piece is basically a 12 movement variation on a theme. These twelve movements sit in a grid of a gradually expanding harmonic progression (a M3/m3 key progression that unfolds in either direction) until eventually by the last movement the piece moves through all 24 keys in a nonstop, continuous loop.
Concurrently, the rhythmic tempo structure circles around the tonic tempo 81 and it’s very slow (40.5), fast (162) and very fast (324) siblings. These 4 themes become increasingly shortened and blurred together whenever there is a rondo-like return to the tempo tonic.
The departures from the tonic tempo movements consist of a dotted note metric modulation that moves to 4 other movement siblings, while the triplet metric modulations steers to 4 others. Meanwhile, a gamelan + clock ensemble smooths/blurs the tempo seams between the tonic tempo and the dotted note/triplet offshoots. When these dotted note and tripped tempos transition between their sibling tempos to get back to the tonic, there is a steeplechase of an ever narrowing meter grid. This grid is recapitulated in the finale itself to fully integrate the affect into the finale.
The melodic structure consists of a theme variation and it’s repetition in each movement. All the eight movements not in the tonic tempo are also characterize by a single note, four note, piano melody that recurs throughout the piece.
The title refers to the protection of angels during a pandemic.
