Dye My Hair

Angular, for acoustic piano solo (2021) 
[Demo] 
This piece reflects Industrial 4.0 and the Future/Current Machine World. It explores the texture of repetitive patterns, questioning and symbolizing the robotic movements.

Angular | Piano Video on Youtube: https://youtu.be/-Syb0xKbZEk

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New Arts Collaboration is a fiscally-sponsored affiliate of InterMusic SF, based in California. InterMusic SF’s mission is to support the professional and artistic growth of San Francisco Bay Area musicians. Your contribution will be passed on to NAC via InterMusic SF, to support artist honorarium, administration, technique and engineering cost, and project development. 

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mixing/cover art: Ting Luo
photo credit: Clover

Angular

Augular

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Jessie Nucho performing the world premiere of Passover, by Brett Austin Eastman, at Center for New Music in San Francisco on July 10, 2021. Notes from the composer about the piece:

Passover is a part of a series of three works for flute exploring the concept of feedback.This work overall is about processing anxiety. It is a musical interpretation of a poem by Jessie Nucho written as a way of managing anxiety.The piece itself is the result of a feedback process: the words of a personal struggle, when transformed through another’s lens, can evolve from their original meaning and become something new. The text of the original poem is reprocessed as music, then fed-back to its author, who performs the world premiere, reinterpreting the original work in an entirely new medium, and thus, in a different mindset.The audience reaction during performance represents the last form of feedback experienced in the process, allowing the performer to see a new self-reflection.

To achieve the text-to-music transcription, I started by using a cryptogram developed for the piece. In this cryptogrammic technique designed to transcribe text into melodic phrases, each letter in the alphabet corresponds to a specific musical pitch and duration. I also use a technique called aspirated articulation for recreating certain speech sounds, such as unvoiced fricatives “s,” “t,” etc. and eliding them with the next pitch, thus creating an artificial attack to the principle note, notated as a grace note right before the main note.

-Brett Austin Eastman


For full video, please click the following link:
https://youtu.be/lYFwsHTVeH8

For more information:
http://brettaustineastman.com/

Passover (2020) - performed by Jessie Nucho

Live improvisation on Jan. 6, 2021 @ Ircam, Salle Stravinsky

Yi Zhou 周易, cello
Jon Yu, electronics

Improvisation with Yi Zhou 周易 (Jan. 6, 2021) for cello and electronics

Hoson zês, phainou, mêden holôs su lupou;
pros oligon esti to zên, to telos ho chronos apaitei.

[For as long as you live, be happy and do not be distressed in any way.  
Life exists for a short while, and Time demands its due.]

Ancient Greek text from the Epitaph of Seikilos, ca. 1st century C.E.
English translation by Randall McNeil


Seikilos

Flags On The Moon

Situation I / Incidents( 2016)
Written for Vertixe Sonara (Tenor Sax, Acc, Pn, Perc, Vc, Db) 
**
Premiere: November 19th. 2016
Luz-Non-Luz no Festival Vertixe Sonora
******
Some words about the piece:
Situations are series of pieces with a set of circumstances in which one finds oneself.
In Situation I / Incidents, I am carefully observing, perceiving and later on identifying different incidents and their qualities. and also how they reflect each situation around them with their Echoes and resonances.

In our daily life, we face incidents all the time. sometimes they are distinct piece of action or episode. They could also be an occurrence of seemingly minor importance, especially factions between which relations are strained and sensitive. Since every action has a reaction, there would be footprints of resonances and echoes after each incident.

Situation I /  Incidents (2016)

text by Nina Dante
performed by Fonema Consort

Bodyscape

Intertwined Distances (2018)
Solo Harpsichord and Electronics (quadrophonic)

commissioned by and written for Mahan Esfahani
Premiere: March 2018, Madrid, Fundación Juan March
http://www.march.es/musica/detalle.aspx?p5=100310
Recording: Live radio broadcast 

----------------------------------

Some words about the piece: 

Distance, Movement, Silence, Perception, Paradox, Continuity...

According to Merriam-Webster, distance is a separation in time, an extent of advance from a beginning; and in mathematics it refers to the degree or amount of separation between two points, lines, surfaces, or objects.

In this piece I am exploring the qualities of various dimensions of ‘distances’.
The piece opens perceptual spaces and plays with the listener’s perceptions. It is an observation of how the sound moves and travels within the concert hall, of the distances between the performer on stage and the audience, and of the relationships of both with the quadraphonic speakers. On another level, it explores the phenomena of distance in time (the centuries- old harpsichord being placed in a modern environment) and distance between people (geographically, emotionally, etc). Our daily life is made of these intertwined distances, which are constantly in movement and change.

On a personal level, the electronic component comes out of a close collaboration, between Mahan Esfahani and the composer.

The sounds are solely harpsichord sounds, specially recorded for this piece. In association with various filters and processes, the material developed further and gained other colours and qualities.
The piece is an observation of these constant movements of sound and various perceptions of distances – and of ultimately how all these unite and convolute by twining with each other.

Intertwined Distances (2018)

Premiered by AsianArt Ensemble on August 11th, 2019 at Villa Elisabeth, Berlin.

Wu Wei, sheng
Hong Yoo, daegeum
Matthias Leupold, violin
Chang-Yun Yoo, viola
Gabriella Strümpel, cello
Matthias Bauer, contrabass
Adam Weisman, percussion
Il-Ryun Chung, conductor

[pictured: Paulo Nozolino]

Passover (2020) - performed by Jessie Nucho

Brett Austin Eastman

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