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String Quartet
2024
12 min.
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- Program Notes
- The Chernobyl nuclear disaster fundamentally changed the way we view power. The world discovered that the power not only lies in raw energy, but the control over information. On April 26th, 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded. The exposed core would then release nearly twice the radiation of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima every hour until it was stopped. The disaster was not only caused by the negligence of individual human beings, but also the depict and secrecy that shrouded the soviet union. Uranium-238 has a half-life of nearly 4.5 billion years. So, until then, we wait. CHAIN4 OF DISASTEЯ is meant to capture a few feelings involving the Chernobyl disaster. The main feelings include anger, fear, and most of all uncertainty. There are several live electronic elements that enhance these emotions along with the string quartet. The main element is the use and live performance of a synthesizer Geiger counter instrument. At times, the string quartet joins this effect by mimicking the sounds of the Geiger counter. This is then matched with a cuing device that can trigger all 28 sound cues throughout the piece. Each cue is meticulously edited to either add a glitch, pitch shift, distortion, or combination of effects to a line of spoken text. Most of the cues have been edited to the point where the original spoken text is almost unrecognizable. This was done intentionally to mimic the use of voice changers to mask the identity of the speaker and old warped tapes that have degraded sonically over time.