4-4:45

nonsense poetry  ....................................................................... Zac Flasch

nonsense poetry is a setting of 3 poems for treble vocal quartet and fixed media electronics. I wrote these poems from the perspective of an AI machine that is trying to make sense of its own consciousness for the first time. The three poems each portray different parts of the experience, ranging from inquisitive curiosity and joy, to complete confusion and chaos. The syntax of various phrases are manipulated and interspersed in the “wrong” places, much like a machine might do when attempting to make sense of language and syntax. A duality is presented between the humanity of the voices and the machine-like quality of the media tracks, with the humanity of the voices ultimately prevailing with the final statement: “I am.”

4:45-5:30

Distance  ....................................................................... Will Hermanowski

Distance draws on my experiences being in a long-distance relationship. The piece begins with unintelligible text fragments creating gibberish. As the music continues the sounds become more clear, evolving into three short phrases: “I love you,” “I miss you,” “Why can’t we.”

6 - 6:45

This Place: Left Behind  .............................................................. Yeongsuk Jung

My piece sets to text Long-term nuclear waste warning messages. in 1993, Sandia National Laboratories released a report that aimed to communicate the danger of nuclear waste. They gave an example of what the message should evoke.

Here is an example message they gave.

Message goes as follows:
This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!
Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.

What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us.
The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.

The danger is to the body, and it can kill.
The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically.
This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

6:45-7:30

Ondine  ....................................................................... Sum Yee Lee

As a pianist, I am always captivated by the sound world that Ravel created in his “Ondine” from Gaspard de la Nuit for piano solo. The vivid imagery and the story of the poem inspired me to compose a vocal ensemble with fixed media piece for the Quince Ensemble. The text is from the poem “Ondine” in Gaspard de la Nuit: Fantasies in the Manner of Rembrandt by Callot Aloysius Bertrand. The piece is in both French and English. Processed whispering, singing, and speaking can be heard in the electronic part.

Thanks as always to Joe Klingler for his continuing support of the Klingler ElectroAcoustic Residency at the College of Musical Arts.

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