Sounding Spaces | "Lauterdale 06252022"

This piece received it's premiere by the JACK Quartet on October 6, 2014.  When considering the type of program notes for a piece such as this, I felt that something abstract and not so “straightforward” in nature would be the best approach for the listener. One could perceive the music
and the poem as being parallel in meaning, or perhaps they are two polarities of the same concept. Whatever
the interpretation, the word “raw” has an abundance of meanings that are at the disposal of the listener.
ROUGH OUTLINE and this string quartet simply strive to captures its many faces:
 
not cooked; being in or nearly in the natural state; not processed or purified; not diluted or
blended; unprepared or imperfectly prepared for use; not being in polished, finished, or processed
form; having the surface abraded or chafed; very irritated; lacking covering; not protected;
susceptible to hurt; lacking experience or understanding; marked by absence of refinements; not
tempered; disagreeably damp or cold.
 
 
ROUGH OUTLINE | Kassia Lisinski †
An uncultivated break of truncate and musical rhyme,
it begins with a split and slow slime;
silence and a bang of naked skretch,
retching skinless, rough, and bright in time
as blood and grime. Then,
a slinging peal of tingling scrapes:
a quiet, a plucker, a spider scratch
a thatch of twine drawn vulgar--
the smaller signs of unmatched natural flesh
moving with porish toe taps
through a frisson of skin and scabby swell--
a frank hell of untempered discontent--
of violent timber splintered and
ribboned, abraded and bended
RAW
bursts crustless, gross, and unprotected
RAW
chafed, scathed, and bathed in crude
RAW
muscles its mass through air
and spits a taste copper and rare
RAW
RAW
RAW
 
† RAW (String Quartet No. 2), was written in parallel to this poem by Kassia Lisinkski. The poem was used by permission. All rights are reserved to the author of this poem.
 

Premiered by the Cornell University Chamber Singers on May 4, 2016. 

This choral work arose from a “chant” I compiled on February 29, 2016 entitled remembering. It follows a sequence of leap years and non-leap years from Feb. 29, 2000 through February 29, 2016 that were translated into numbers ([02] [29] [2000]) then to notes ([C-D] [D-A] [D-C-C-C]).  The process yielded a gradually evolving progression of melodic and harmonic material. Every passing phrase is a year in time and is initiated by the same two notes, becoming somewhat ritualistic. When listening to the piece, it is easy to forget how the music arrived at particular sonic conclusions, but the mostly unchanging sonorities at the beginning of each phrase are solidified in memory.

your light, forever (2016) came out of a desire to utilize this memorial chant as material for some type of choral “requiem.” Yet, I did not want to force a text of the requiem mass into this rather static and repetitive musical narrative. A more ritualistic and thus concise text was needed that would also yield enough diverse vocal qualities throughout each passing phrase. The excerpt from the requiem mass text, Lux aeterna (eternal light), is ubiquitously employed in the choral repertoire. I chose to use simply these two words for their historical implication, the potential for repetition yet meaningful juxtaposition, and the paradox that it describes in the context of this music:  light represented as a physical object of the universe is eternal, but as a symbol for life has an end. 

The work is a memorial, recalling sixteen years of time.


your light, forever

Between Voices

Moon Setting is nostalgic for me. It draws on the experience of savoring the moment (knowing it ends) and lives in the irrational reminiscence that follows. Recently, I have been exploring a more reactionary and improvisatory process where I take extramusical elements, meditate on them, and then go to an instrument such as the piano and improvise. These feelings were highly present in my mind when I improvised and imagined this piece. Movement arises from seemingly static material and the resonance of the vibraphones and marimba attempt to evoke a quiet intensity.

The piece was premiered by the Ithaca College Percussion Trio as a part of the Un/Pitched Project. It lasts approximately 9 mins.

Moon Setting

Imagery has become an important aspect of my work. While writing Farther from the truth, I started experimenting with a reactionary and improvisatory process where I meditate on a vision or image, then go to an instrument and improvise a piece in its entirety. Actively “touching” the sounds and connecting with them in this way has become an important part of my process. While much of this material never made it into the piece, these initial improvisations shaped its development.

The vision I associate with this piece comes from a period of great tension in my life. Much of my downtime is spent being present in nature and, if possible, in front of a huge body of water. It’s humbling. It’s a safe space. The piece doesn’t attempt to directly portray nature itself, but rather the specific feelings and network of associations it evokes. Water is present at the core of the piece:  the desire to be near it and to be totally immersed in it.

Farther from the truth was premiered by the Cornell Symphony Orchestra with Chris Kim (conductor).

Farther from the truth

Performed by the Bienen Contemporary/Early Vocal Ensemble with Donald Nally (conductor)

A Clear Midnight

Late-day light in a bluebell wood

Familiar landscapes
Program notes

Toward the end of summer 2018, I was practicing the Haydn Mass in B-Flat "Harmoniemesse" one evening in preparation for a Maui, HI trip with the Cornell Chamber Singers. The whole fifty-minute piece is in B-flat (with an occasional modulation to G-minor) and it’s incredible how Haydn extracts so much variation out of such a limited pitch space. I was practicing this one line repeatedly with the piano to achieve proper tuning with the other vocal lines and this piece sort of materialized on the keyboard. It began as a three-note melody, then a harmony, and then a texture (a frequent trajectory in my compositional process). While my friends were in the living room playing Mario Kart, I improvised this piece in its entirety twice within that evening practice session—they can be heard hoopin’ and hollerin’ on one of the recordings I made. 

Even in these first stages, the piece’s four-parts took shape. I thought of them in the following ways:  Visitation – Contemplation – Re-visitation – Reflection (coda). I decided to go with the rather sterile “Part One, Part Two, etc.” in the end because it’s quite nice sometimes when music is left open to take on new meanings. Regardless, Familiar landscapes (2019) feels alive to me and comes from these visceral images in my mind. The first section is bright, intense, and some of the ideas in Part Two are foreshadowed here. Or perhaps it’s the other way around? The opening ideas are revealed again in Part Three, but in the lower register and with the addition of the omnipresent “G.” It retains a sense of familiarity for me. This third part continually swells towards the end until releasing into a rather brief final section. Part Four is just remnants of Part Three. It uses the overtones and combination tones I heard appear in the third section to create a thick polyphonic texture. It begins somewhat slowly, gets quieter, then faster and somehow more intense until it disappears into the final measure.

The most important aspect of this piece to me is that it comes from a place of joy. I hereby dedicate it to that feeling. God knows many of us write music out of depressing states (I certainly have). It was nice to change it up. Familiar landscapes was written with Ryan MacEvoy McCullough (pianist), the Silver Wind Symphony, and James Spinazzola (conductor). The piece lasts approximately 12 and a half minutes.

Familiar landscapes

The amount of pitches I chose for Twenty-one notes with fourteen instruments (2019) was constantly in flux throughout the compositional process. I couldn’t, for the life of me, choose which was the correct amount of notes to work with. I struggled with defining the concept of what a “note” actually even means. Is a note fixed in pitch space? That is, if you strike middle C on the keyboard, is that the same as striking the C an octave above? Or are these different altogether. 

It is worth clarifying that an octave is a tone which vibrates twice the number of times as the octave below it. To me, that means they are different. As such, there are twenty-one notes in this piece in the sense that the octave doublings are counted as separate tones. By simply shifting a pitch—or a frequency if you will (I certainly will)—into a new octave an entirely new set of vibrating tendencies surface from that note’s vibration in the room, within the instrument, and in proximity to other instruments.

Beyond defining notes, I do contemplate other subjects in life and I would like to share two other preoccupations that are relevant to this piece. First, I am investigating how to generate varied experiences within a performance situation. Many of my recent works employ “private tunings ambiences” that play through the performers headphones. I use a specific frequency to create a continuous sound in the performer’s ear, and when they tune to this sound they have a different experience than anyone else in the room. They hear the sound of their instrument interacting with sounds in their headphones. You and I on the other hand, hear the collective product of these musicians as they carry on through their own private performance. To me, each of these is a special experience, and I value that diversity.

I am also interested in stasis. Mainly, I do not believe it exists. Forces of nature, sound included, are constantly in motion. We are so impatient as human beings that we cannot possibly allow ourselves to slow down and attune to the world around us, nor can we comprehend any other sense of time beyond what we know. Stasis is a ridiculous word we invented (and certainly not the only one).

Twenty-one notes with fourteen instruments (2019) lasts precisely twenty-two minutes.

Twenty-one notes with fourteen instruments

Barry Sharp seeks to create an environment of inclusion and experimentation through new dynamics between performers, composers, and audiences. His works often develop out of a specific sound world from which he sculpts a landscape of harmonic, melodic, and textural ideas. He is interested in how musical experiences vary between performers and listeners, given the way these landscapes are constructed and executed versus how they are perceived. Barry has worked with ensembles such as Duo Helix, Amalgama, sTem, JACK Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Bienen Early/Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, [Switch~ Ensemble], Arditti Quartet, the Princeton Singers, OSSIA Ensemble, Un/Pitched, Ithaca New Music Collective, Cornell Orchestras, and the Cornell Chamber Singers.

Barry enjoys collaborations with musicians as well as artists of different backgrounds. He performs with composer Sergio Cote in the experimental duo etc, [ee-tea-see]. Their work involves creating pieces through an experimental, rebellious, and democratic approach to sound. As composer-in-residence with the New York–based Duo Helix, Eric Umble (clarinet) and Izzy Lepanto-Gleicher (flute), he is authoring an ongoing project, Song Sessions, that derives compositional frameworks from the songs of humpback whales. Another recent project, Hear me, grew out of an exchange with architect Min Keun Park, the Cornell Chamber Orchestra, and Chris Kim (conductor). The project received a grant from the Cornell Council for the Arts for the 2016-2017 biennial. In 2014, Barry collaborated with poets, dancers, light designers, and other composers to create a fifty-minute production addressing war trauma entitled No Armistice. Projects he is currently working on include an opera with librettist Vincent Hiscock and director Ellen Jackson, a new piece for amplified piano and wind ensemble with pianist Ryan McCullough and the Silver Wind Symphony (Cornell), and new work for vibraphone and pure tones with percussionist Lindsey Eastham.

Barry is currently a doctoral candidate at Cornell University where he studies with Kevin Ernste, Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri, and Roberto Sierra. He also holds degrees in music from Murray State University (BM) and the University of Iowa (MA). More at www.barry-sharp.com.

Barry Sharp

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