Michael Burritt, Sweet Dreams and Time Machines (2017)
Sweet Dreams and Time Machines is dedicated to the memory of my friend, colleague and former Dean of the Eastman School of Music, Doug Lowry. There isn’t a week that goes by at Eastman when I don’t think of Doug, from the time I interviewed with him for the position at Eastman to Doug introducing me as “Buzz Saw” Burritt after a memorable performance with the Eastman Wind Ensemble in Chicago. Doug was a person who always allowed you to feel yourself in his presence through his  warm demeanor and casual sense of humor.

There are no time machines, outside of science fiction novels and movies. True time machines are the memories we carry with us of people and moments shared. I find some memories so poignant that you can almost step into them, almost as though you are living that moment again. Sweet Dreams to those who have passed, touched us forever, and live eternally in our time machines.

Bruno Mantovani, Bug (1999 for clarinet; arr. 2019 for alto saxophone)
Premiered on February 6, 1999 at the Meriel Festival by its dedicatee, Philippe Berrod, Bug is an extremely virtuosic and unstable work, a musical metaphor for disorder caused by an imaginary computer failure (and fortunately not a premonition of what could have happened December 31, 1999...). Although in the beginning of the work most of the rhythmic formulas are multiples of a common unit (the sixteenth-note), this discourse loses its regularity with the use of specific dynamics, which often contradict the melodic profile. Likewise, the many trills or bisbigliandi, as well as the various articulations, help to give a feeling of extreme density at the beginning of the work. Gradually, the discourse seems to escape from the performer, with rapid features replacing the pulsation present at the start of the work. After a brief lull, virtuosity resumes its place, leading to a point of no return: a note in the highest register played ffff. From this moment on, everything seems to disintegrate: scraps of figures replace the dazzle of the previous section. Even the harmonic scale seems to decompose: quarter-tones disturb the air as if sound was melting. The piece then ends with long notes that alone reflect the persistence of microtonal melodies.

Berberian, Stripsody (1966)
The score should be performed as if by a radio sound man, without any props, who must provide all the sound effects with his voice. The three lines represent the different pitch levels: low, medium and high.

The lines enclosed by bars are to be performed as “scenes” in contrast to the basic material which is a glossary of onomatopoeia used in comic strips.

Whenever possible, gestures and body movements should be simultaneous with the vocal gestures.

One page 10 is a child’s figure which represents a silence in which the performer places her thumb in her mouth and cups her other hand to her ear.

Basically, the spacing of the “sound words” indicates the timing. In performance, the entire work generally takes 6 minutes.

This work was commissioned by Hans Otte on behalf of the Bremen Radio for the Festival of Contemporary Music of May 1966 and was first performed on that occasion.

Hildegard Westerkamp, Fantasie for Horns II (1979)
Fantasie for Horns II was composed in two stages: the soundtrack was completed first, in 1978, and was conceived as a composition in its own right (Fantasie for Horns I, which received honourable mention at the 1979 International Competition of Electroacoustic Music in Bourges, France). After the completion of the soundtrack, it seemed natural to add a live horn part. Besides being environmental in its choice of sounds, the soundtrack could now become the acoustic environment for the horn - an instrument which, in turn, has had a long history as a sound signal in many parts of the world.

The sound sources for the soundtrack are Canadian train horns, foghorns from both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of Canada, factory and boat horns from Vancouver and surroundings—horns that Canadians heard in daily life at the time this composition was created. Since the 1980s however, with the gradual automation of lighthouses, many of the foghorns heard in this piece have disappeared from the coastal Canadian soundscapes. Additional sound sources are an alphorn and a creek. Most of the material was taken from the World Soundscape Project's environmental recordings collection at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC; some of it was recorded by the composer.

Listening to the various horns in the collection was fascinating because of the way their sounds were shaped and modulated by the surrounding landscape. Some horns would echo only once, others many times, their sounds slowly fading into the distance. One foghorn had an echo that was an octave lower than the actual sound, another was an octave higher. A train horn's echo was half a tone lower as the train approached, but the same pitch as it passed. Each horn acquires its unique sound from the landscape it inhabits. This strong interaction between these sounds and their environment gave the inspiration to work with this material. Horn sounds are interesting for another reason—they rise above any ambience, even that of large cities. They are soundmarks that give a place its character and give us, often subliminally, a "sense of place."

The soundtrack of the piece was composed at the Sonic Research Studio at Simon Fraser University.

Luis Naòn, Duel 1 (2008)
The piece was intended to be performed by the instrumentalists within a considerable distance from each other. The original auditory space was a kind of long corridor of 25 metres long and 7 metres wide in which two dancers execute a very slow movement starting from each end into the centre where they intermingle. The public was arranged all through the length of the corridor and that way they perceived the instrumental sound from left to right.

Therefore, the piece can be executed in a traditional duet with certain closeness of the interpreters or in uncommon ways: one musician in the scene and the other behind the public, or both in different places of the concert space.

Heinz Holliger, Five Little Pieces (1980)
From the publisher: For his 80th birthday, the oboist and composer Heinz Holliger composed these five precious miniatures as an additional contribution to the oboe world. Five Little Pieces represents an evolution and maturation of the oboe playing technique, including new sonorities and extended techniques that enrich the interpreter’s palette of colors and possibilities. The fourth piece, “con slancio”, which is lyrical and melodic for the most part, takes the performer to the most virtuoso playing techniques. These five pieces can be performed individually as encores or as a complete concert piece.

Dorothy Chang, Bagatelles (2016)
Ever enamoured of short forms, in composing Bagatelles for the Nu:BC Collective I turned once again to my favourite musical structure: a collection of multiple brief movements.  The six pieces that form the larger work are contrasting in character, exploring unusual timbral colours, extended harmonies, lyricism, rhythmic pulse and whimsy.    

The Ravel-esque opening movement entitled “the palest of blues” features a solitary blue note, followed by the second movement “rondino”, a mosaic of fragments that create a constantly shifting texture over largely static harmonies.  In “elixir”, a mesmerizing C# piano drone gradually draws in the other two instruments like moths to a flame, with the fourth movement, “still waters”, offering in response a lyrical and introspective meditation. “togetherness” is a light scherzo-like movement that plays with the concept of togetherness (or not) of timbre, rhythm and gesture among the diverse instruments of the ensemble.  The set closes with “rhythm study no. 1”, a tongue in cheek title that refers to a classical musician’s brief exploration of that compelling phenomenon called ‘groove’.

Christopher Cerrone, Double Happiness (2012 for electric guitar & percussion; arr. 2016 for piano & percussion)
Double Happiness was written in the fall of 2012. While the piece was composed in New York, much of the piece was inspired by a summer spent in Italy while I was a fellow at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation’s castle in Umbria. I spent a lot of my time in Italy collecting field recordings of the Italian countryside, the sounds of church bells, train stations, and rainstorms. All of these sounds eventually found their way into Double Happiness as I constructed an emotional narrative around the sounds I experienced.

The piece consists of three larger movements connected by two (almost) identical interludes. The first movement, ‘Self Portrait, Part I’, explores the simple repetition of four simple notes, obsessive in their melancholy. The piano plays only harmonics, while the vibraphone always plays gently sustained notes; both are paired with ambient noises and simple sustaining electronics (hovering in and around the pitches) that further maintain the mood. The movement ends on an optimistic note as the four repeated notes slowly transform into a downward-moving chorale that leads inexorably to a celebratory D major chord.

The mood of the first movement is cut off quickly. Summer in Umbria is hot and dry and always ends quite abruptly with a long and extreme rain storm that cuts the heat; unexpectedly, out of nowhere, it’s autumn. I used the sound of this rainstorm to create the same effect in my interludes in Double Happiness. The first interlude features the rainstorm, two gentle chords in the piano and the vibraphone player who plays my transcription of four church bells heard ringing asynchronously in the distance.

If the first ‘Self Portrait’ explores extremes of melancholy, the third movement, ‘Self Portrait, Part II’ is an extreme study in joy, ecstatic joy that comes from the feeling of creation itself—the feeling can be almost as uncontrollable as melancholy. The third movement features a field recording of a rhythmic train station bell. This sound is coupled with the percussionist playing a simple and very rhythmic melody over and over again, augmented with resonant and microtonal electronics, giving the whole movement an extremely bright, metallic sheen. Eventually, the piano joins the vibraphone in a very careful and detailed rhythmic hocket as the movement spins out more and more vibrantly.

The third movement cuts off as quickly as the first and we once again have an interlude. The second interlude is more austere than the first, with the transcription of a simple and extraordinarily resonant church bell ringing against the chords of the piano and the rainstorm again.

The final movement, ‘New Year’s Song (for Sarah)’ tries to find a place of repose between the two extremes. The movement is in fact a simple song where the two performers play a long, sustained melody. A brief moment of electronics features the composer himself playing violin, and accordion. The movement ends gently, and I hope happily.