Antwerp Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Wim Henderickx

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3clCMEoWrY

Mvmt II: Alter(n)ations

This piece, originally called "Alter(n)ations," is intended to be one movement of a larger three-movement work entitled "Giacometti, tâtonnant." Alter(n)ations juxtaposes musical processes of alternation and alteration as applied to a sound mass. The work aims to emulate the perpetual hesitation and modification which characterize Alberto Giacometti’s sculpting technique. As the sound mass gradually accumulates, it hesitates and periodically rearranges its own contents with each reiteration, never abandoning itself completely but always reimagining its configuration.


Ce morceau, intitulé "Alter(n)ations," représente une partie d'une oeuvre en trois mouvement intitulé "Giacometti, tâtonnant" qui est actuellement inachevée. Alter(n)ations juxtapose des processus musicaux d’altération et d’alternance et les applique à une masse sonore. L’œuvre tente d’incarner l’hésitation et la modification perpétuelle qui caractérisent le geste créatif du sculpteur Alberto Giacometti. La masse sonore s’accumule graduellement, et cependant son contenu se remanie avec chaque itération d’une manière non-linéaire, tout en gardant sa forme et ses composants essentiaux.

Giacometti, tâtonnant (2020)

Flow is the product of an aesthetic preoccupation towards the domain of quiet sounds. It is a series of concurrent streams which move independently, each operating as a filter through which we hear a slowly changing meta-timbre.

In late 2019 and early 2020, I was among several composers the opportunity to write a piece in collaboration with an ensemble as part of an initiative researching orchestrational practices. This ensemble, in addition to being extremely unusual, presented challenges of balance and timbre, and given the collaborative workshop structure of the project, I was inspired to look for solutions outside of the bounds of what one might normally do as a composer, going so far as to design and test mutes and reeds to push the disparate, non-homogenous sounds of each instrument towards each other.

Many thanks to the ACTOR Project, to the dedicated musicians who were integral collaborators when writing the piece, and to the dedicated performers heard in this recording:

Eric Bourgeois, Trombone
Jeanne Côté, Violin
Martin Daigle, Percussion
Matias Perinetti-Paniagua, Bass Clarinet

Charles-Eric Fontaine, Conductor

Flow (2019-2020)

Violon: Jeanne-Sophie Baron
Saxophone Soprano: Ludovik Lesage-Hinse

avec électronique en temps réel et bande sonore

Enregistré à l'église de Saint-Georges à Montréal en Juin 2021.
vidéo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuJcqCxEQd0

     J’ai allumé deux fleurs tremblantes s’inspire du poème « En guise de fête » d’Anne Hébert. J’ai surtout été marqué par l’atmosphère apaisée du poème et son envahissement progressif par une sombre morbidité. Cette coexistence de la douceur et de la douleur, d’un calme quotidien et d’une souffrance globale m'a paru tout à fait pertinente à la vie en temps de pandémie.

     La musique tente d’incarner ces dichotomies troublantes, ainsi que le jeu imagiste de clair-obscur qui les évoque, à travers un langage contrasté de traits étendus et de répétitions frustrées. Le temps lisse ne se prolonge que pour être interrompu par l’éclat de l’immédiat. Finalement, elle se transforme en une sorte de danse insensée, toujours prise au piège de cette répétition langoureuse, mais tenant à l’habiter pleinement, en guise de fête.

https://www.lesvoixdelapoesie.com/poemes/en-guise-de-fete

J’ai allumé deux fleurs tremblantes is inspired by the poem “En guise de fête” (loosely: In the guise of celebration) by Anne Hébert. I was especially struck by the poem’s peaceful atmosphere which is gradually infiltrated and transformed by a distant morbidity. This coexistence of peace and pain, quotidien calm and global suffering seemed very relevant to pandemic life.

The music attempts to recreate these troubling dichotomies, as well as the imagist chiaroscuro play used to evoke them, through a contrasted language of planing lines and frustrated repetitions. Undifferentiated time is prolonged, only to be interrupted by the sudden burst of the immediate present. Finally, the music is transformed into a kind of nonsensical dance, still trapped in languorous repetition, but resolved to inhabit it fully, in the guise of celebration.

J'ai allumé deux fleurs tremblantes (2021)

A work for bassoon and stereo fixed media, commissioned by and composed for Doug Spaniol - this is a virtuoso, humorous outing for bassoon wherein the player is haunted but bassoon ghosts, and Der Überbassoon - fast, frantic, new bassoon manipulations abound everywhere.  

Available from Ravello Records on iTunes and Amazon.com

and So the Hole Was Dug

Piano Piece No 1 - ... Ceci n'est pas M. Debussy

My first performance of the Mozart concerto with orchestra in May, 1981, age 22, with the Curtis Symphony, Carmit Zori, concertmaster, conducted by William Smith just before I joined the Montreal Symphony.  I was playing my 10,000 series Heckel with with slightly faster vibrato than I use now!  Cadenzas by Bernard Garfield who came to the concert that night.  Concert recorded by my father on his Nagra (which explains why all the applause is recorded!); my parents had driven 3000 miles from northern BC to hear this performance, then they drove back again.

Mozart Concerto K191 with Nadina Mackie(age 22)& the Curtis Symphony Orchestra - 1981

Doctoral student in Composition at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. Master's and Undergraduate degrees from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.

N.B.: Previously public tracks have been made private.  DM to request access.

Flow (2019-2020)

Alexander Blank

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