075T3 (2019) for amplified viola and tape

premiered:
41 St Biannual International Electroacoustic Music Festival
Brooklyn College
07 Nov 2019

also performed:
09 Nov 2019, Sonic Arts Open Studios, Brooklyn College

recorded:
2 Dec 2019, Feirstien Graduate School of Cinema Studios

notes:
075T3 is a pseudo-serial composition for viola and recorded synthesizer. The two instruments interlock to complete a looped five-note “sample” drawn from a tone row. As the work unfolds, this loop continually morphs: its first note is dropped while the next in the row is appended, creating a shifting pentad that cycles through the entire row before returning to its origin. This evolving process reveals intertwining melodic fragments and unexpected rhythmic counterpoint between acoustic and electronic voices.

The post-production emphasizes resonance and materiality. Instead of artificial reverb, the mix employs a reverb chamber and an exciter affixed to a metal structure, recorded through contact microphones to capture the structure’s resonant response. This situates the viola and its environment as natural bodies set against the synthetic timbre of the synthesizer, framing the work as a dialogue between embodied and digital sound. In this sense, 075T3 anticipates the broader themes of the EV project: how acoustic tradition and digital artifice might intertwine, not to erase one another, but to form a hybrid sonic ecology.

score:
075T3-SCOREPARTS