Beyond
Medford Series
2003; 47:15 min.
Beyond is based on a large-scale symphonic design, such that the third movement is a return to the roots of the grounding musical idea articulated by the first two movements. The piece was composed as a virtual choreography, suggesting a concrete, physical choreography as its optimal medium of presentation.
The three movements [17:46, 13:10, 16:19] are tied together by an identical base score that appears in always new manifestations. They are related facets of a space increasingly opened up by the energies of the composition. The piece is dedicated to Nadine Boughton, a practitioner of authentic movement in which one's own moment-by-moment inner movement is expressed through gestures.
Compositionally, Beyond is based on the use of algorithmic score synthesis employed as a tool for creating fields of tone color. Each of the three movements of the composition is based on different classes of tone color (instrument libraries). The first movement employs similar or related classes of sound, while the second movement uses monochrome tone colors. The third movement is a synthesis, in the dialectical sense of the term. Its mixes of heterogeneous tone colors are ultimately woven into the underlying and unifying harmony that pervades the movement as well as the entire composition.
Technically, the compositional process is based on a feedback loop between a score generator (CMask) and an icon-based sound synthesis language (Kyma). The compositional technique used is score based sampling , a method invented by me for using syntactically related scores of different length at different time-levels of articulation (sample, base score, variations of the base score, superimposition of scores). At the lowest levels, scores define sound samples, while at the next higher level, they make up the underlying score. At the highest semantic level, the score variants derived from the base score, mixed together, define the musical form.