This violin concerto is dedicated to violinist, Mira Benjamin.

The title, Faith in Numbers, is taken from a popular science documentary by James Burke of the same name, which shows how technology emerges from seemingly unconnected events in history. This title doesn’t refer to faith in a religious sense, but to signify a complete trust in something or someone. I chose this title for my composition because of the utilization of the same basic proportions in all structural levels. By doing this, the reiteration of simple numbers and ratios, applied to different aspects of the composition, combine to form a complex whole.

The third and fourth strings of the violin are retuned: the G string is tuned down a sixth of a tone, and the D string is tuned up a quarter-tone. This microtonal scordatura transports the treatment of pitch in the music to the resonance of the instrument itself. In this way, my ideas about pitch inform how I want to tune the violin, then the retuned violin informs me about how I want to use pitch in the composition. The open strings define the important tonal centres of the work as well as the construction of the modes, which are drawn from the first seven harmonics of the opens strings.

The percussion quartet perform on a drum kit, two almglocken and a steel string guitar. The guitar is played primarily with mallets while secured on its back to a table. By using the guitar as a percussion instrument I am tipping my hat to Lou Harrison and the use of a double bass in his violin concerto, which uses a percussion quintet instead of an orchestra. Each of the guitars is tuned to a different open chord, corresponding to the pitch of one of the open violin strings.

Faith In Numbers: Concerto for Violin with Percussion Quartet (Mira Benjamin/Architek Percussion)

All audio in this track is from 12 slide whistles played by 12 small electric blowers. The blowers are programmed to carefully oscillate at a flow rate close to that at which the whistles overblows. These sounds are pretty quiet in real life even though they sometimes sound intense.

No electronics were added and I made minimal adjustments to the original sounds, mostly moving things around a bit.

12 Whistles Playing the Break, for 12 mechanically controlled slidewhistles

Electronic Music in 37-limit Just Intonation (3.5.7.11.13.23.37)

created in SuperCollider 3.9.3
April-December, 2020

dedicated to Marcus Pal

large scale modulation down a fourth ("I-V")
3:4  -->  6:8:9  -->  8:11:12

PORT (Rondo for Marcus Pal)(2020)

2-channel electronic, fixed-media.
Loíza, Puerto Rico, December 25, 2020 - January 2, 2021.
"drink rain from the pulse at my throat" - text excerpted from Kim Addonizio's "Muse".

drink rain (2021)

Physically modelled performance (NotePerformer) 
Orchestral music in 13-limit just intonation
(3.3.3.3/4.3.3.1/bd.timp.harp/strings)

N.B. The very last chord is to be played "as long and accurate as possible", with multiple asynchronous reattacks in the brass and strings (in this version, there is a simple fade out due to the limitations of physical modelling etc.)

PER (2018-20)

In this week's episode, Brad Garton interviews composer Taylor Brook and multi-media artist Lara Lewison about Star Maker Fragments, the new album from TAK Ensemble, out 3/3/2021.

Lara Lewison creates audiovisual art for the web and for live performance, with a focus in networking, language, and creating live works that are dependent on exchanges between “performer" and “audience." She works with combinations of software and programming languages and has given unity workshops and lessons at Harvestworks, CUNY Tech, and Columbia. She holds a bachelors of arts in music from Columbia University and was the 2020 recipient of the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts.

Taylor Brook writes music for the concert stage, electronic music, music for robotic instruments, as well as music for video, theatre, and dance. He has worked with Ensemble Ascolta, JACK Quartet, Mivos Quartet, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Quatuor Bozzini, Talea Ensemble, and others. He has won numerous SOCAN Young Composers awards, including two first-place prizes and the grand prize in 2016 for Song, for solo cello.

Brad Garton is an American composer and computer musician who is professor of music at Columbia University. He has written, or helped to write, a number of computer music applications, including Real-Time Cmix, music synthesis and signal processing language for real time composition.

Star Maker Fragments: takensemble.bandcamp.com/album/star-m…er-fragments

Star Maker World: laar.world/starmaker/

Lara Lewison: laar.world

Taylor Brook: Taylorbrook.info

Brad Garton: sites.music.columbia.edu/brad

016. Star Maker with Taylor Brook, Lara Lewison, and Brad Garton

Excerpt from:
OUTSIDE ONLY SOUND 
The String Orchestra of Brooklyn
Fort Greene Park
Brooklyn, NY
October, 17, 2020

Complete performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPzrgbAA--w&t=574s

Faith In Numbers: Concerto for Violin with Percussion Quartet (Mira Benjamin/Architek Percussion)

brookt

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