The Four elements (2010)

CHAMBER | ELECTROACOUSTIC   13:00

INSTRUMENTATION

bassoon, drum set, electric guitar, piano

The Four Elements was composed during a workshop with composer/improviser Myra Melford. It is a collaborative project that integrates live with pre-recorded improvisation, and explores the use of a single visual stimulus within different performance contexts. 

It was premiered at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) in Berkeley in 2010.

The four images (earth, air, fire, water) started off as a single photograph of a quiet frosty afternoon in Provincetown, Cape Cod. In a reverse process, I asked four improvisers to individually transform each image into a short musical narrative and then stitched them back together into portraits of imagined chamber music.

PREMIERE

Center for New Music and Audio Technologies, Berkeley, CA, 4 December, 2010.

Kate McLoughlin, bassoon; Ian Saxton, drum set; Dan Van-Hassel, electric guitar; Matthew Goodheart, piano.