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String Quartet
2017
Cello
Live Electronics
Other
Strings, bowed
Viola
Violin
- Program Notes
- "Neurosonics" is a long-term, multi-work creative project that grew out of a collaboration with Tahra Eissa, a neuroscience graduate student at the University of Chicago. Tahra’s lab puts rat brains on small electrode arrays, stimulates them and studies their behavior, with the goal of better understanding epilepsy in humans. I took an interest in her research because I have epilepsy myself. All of the electronic sounds in "pathways" bear some relationship to the neuron data: pulses of white noise, for instance, come from directly translating the data into sound, while fluttering sine tones come from using it to manipulate pitch. I’ve assembled these diverse sounds into textures that often become harrowingly dense, even when the electronics aren’t particularly loud, not unlike intermittent overloads of electrical activity in the brain. 

When the electronics reach their loudest, most explosive point, the quartet reenters, struggling against the overwhelming electronics, continuing to push back, in fits and starts, as the electronics subside. Their jagged, erratic polyrhythms slowly become more regular, and they eventually achieve a much more peaceful space. But in this final passage, there’s a slightly brightened consonance that bolsters the quartet’s role as a relieving counterweight to the harrowing electronics, one that may even provide an affirmative message in the end. Special thanks to New Music USA and the University of Chicago for their support of this project.
- Recording Notes
- Spektral Quartet Clara Lyon, violin Theo Espy, violin Doyle Armbrust, viola Russell Rolen, cello Constellation Chicago May 12, 2017
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