S Y N T H E T I C S (2025)
for piano percussion quartet and electronics
Program Note:
SYNTHETICS is an amalgam, bringing together a wide range of organic and synthetic sound sources, textures, and approaches, exploring the uncanny, mimicry, jump-cuts, collision, and collage. Made up of four primary materials, this piece approaches sound through tactile prompts; In Air - feedback and captured electromagnetic field recordings, Drum Machine - a composite drum machine made up by the ensemble, Soft Surface - an exploration of muffled, muted, rubbery textures with the late and great SOPHIE’s synthetic processed drum sounds, and finally, Rub, a washy tuning study between acoustic piano, quarter tone keyboard, and mallet percussion. Each of these four tactile prompts warps and collides with the others, creating a series of hybrid sections that have been characterized by their tactile natures. These hybrid sections include Bend, Bounce, Roll, Glitch and Squeak Boing, among others. At its core, SYNTHETICS is a exploration, a playfully disjunct tapestry of tactile games. At the center of the piece’s shifting soundscape are two MIDI keyboards, one small 2 octave keyboard played in addition to the prepared acoustic piano that has a consistent sample tuning throughout the piece, and the other, a full sized MIDI keyboard that shape shifts with three different tunings, steering between sections. As much as this piece is a tactile play between “real world” and uncanny doubles, this piece is also a foray into genre bending, eliding sounds and approaches from genres that encapsulate a range of music I love, from hyper pop music, to ambient music, from early electronic compositions, to contemporary classical repertoire. Overall, this piece is a collage and collection of my musical moment, the sonic topics, issues and offshoots from work that interest and excite me, all bound together in one.
This piece was commissioned by Yarn Wire for their 2025 Currents Series, and is dedicated to the members of Yarn Wire with gratitude. The creativity, openness and empathy of the ensemble directly facilitated my approach and sense of play with material. The piece, as it is, could not have happened without them, and I am so grateful for their lovely collaborative nature. This piece is also dedicated to my partner Sofie, with all my love.
Premiered on May 21st at Roulette in Brooklyn, New York.