No overdubs (though 18/21 is two different improvisations fading slowly back and forth).  Performed on an Akai AX60 and Alesis Microverb II thru a mixer.  Two have a Klark Teknik DN410 eq.  Iron Interval sometimes incorporates an old friend's little white Boss delay pedal.  Occasionally tones are made by overdriving or feeding back aux sends.  The process: some notes are sustained or arpeggiated at the start, the rest is moving sliders and buttons by ear.

Akai AX60 post-ambient live improvisations

Maria Khodina: violin
Nadezhda Grebennikova: cello
Presented by Anton Rovner at K.M. Simonov Library, Moscow

In mirror canons, if either player's part were held flat before a mirror the other player's part would be seen in the reflection, with the middle line of the five-line staff functioning as the fulcrum. Mirror canons and other such devices had their heyday many centuries ago — they aren't much in use now. Each of these canons adhere to the principal of precise inversion of every interval about the fulcrum with no adjustments. For the violinist, confined to the treble clef, the fulcrum line is always B. By contrast the cellist reads three clefs, bass, tenor and treble, for which the middle line is D, A and B, respectively. By exploiting these cello clefs throughout the canons, a pitch in one part may have any of three different pitches for its "reflection" in the other part. All this admits of many modal, tonal and atonal implications for the listener, not to mention challenges for the performer.

With the exception of the third, central canon, one instrument enters first and the other follows by a strict number of quarter notes: eight for the first canon, seven for the second and fourth, and five for the fifth. In the third canon the instruments enter simultaneously and are rhythmically entrained throughout except for a 19-bar "antique style" section in the middle. The fifth and final canon closes with a "andante sollegiato" (sunlit) that, due to a discovery of pinning the violin against the cello written in tenor clef and limiting to particular intervals, resolves itself in a timeless-sounding modal D. I was surprised and moved by this discovery which arose entirely from the method and not from myself, so I dedicated the closing to the memory of our little orange cat, the Samsquamtch, whose sweetness I think shines through.  

Score available through American Composers Association.

Five Mirror Canons (21 May 2023, Moscow)

This is an experiment that turned into a piece.  Live experimentation, novel sideband production methods for amplitude and frequency modulation.  Ancient ice trapping transmissions.

Exoplanet A-flat Major

NYCC 2023/05/21 — "Musical Bridges" Moscow

V. Andante moderato

IV. Marcia strana

III. Adagio, sostenuto spesso

II. Allegro non troppo ma con brio

I. Adagio con moto

Solo Suite in the Old Style (oboe solo, 2024) explores certain forms and mannerisms of the Classical and Romantic eras. The constraints of the tonal idioms of the past are compounded and magnified by the limitations of the wind instrument for which this suite is written. Music for an unaccompanied monophonic instrument must communicate, in a single line, the essential tonal elements of key, chord movement and modulation, as well any narrative elements such as conflict and resolution, action and rest. It is hoped that this is accomplished in each of the four numbers of this suite. Each number marks a genuine attempt to conjure an ephemeral yet palpable sound sculpture in the mind of the listener.

The melodies in this piece were conceived across a period of about twelve years, spanning a period of great change in my personal and musical life. The final fruit of these ideas—Solo Suite in the Old Style—was composed for oboist Lillian Copeland, who premiered it in a New York Composers Circle concert on February 15, 2024. The piece is dedicated to my indomitable
sister Veronica, in an attempt, however inadequate, to recognize and thank her for the hard work, devotion, and generosity of spirit that she so selflessly bestows on her family.

Solo Suite in the Old Style [rev.}, for oboe solo

Solo Suite in the Old Style

Fragmentary Scenes for piano solo was composed in May 2024 for Craig Ketter. The musical "scenes," comprised of distinguishable rhythmic, melodic and harmonic gestures, are elaborated across a non-narrative spectrum of contrasts and affinities.

Fragmentary Scenes (Dorico)

Live improvisations, no overdubs.  Performed on an Akai AX60 with a live send to a Microverb II.  Some notes are sustained at the start, the rest is sliders and buttons.

Note to synth-heads.  Whatever you may think of the music itself - or of my preoccupation with nausea or my sometimes heavy-handed reverb use - there's no denying the power and capability of this synth.  It's making all of these sounds at once, and this is just a sample of the kinds of things it can do.  For example in "imp 2B" the two notes heard at the end (Bb and G) are the only notes that have been playing, held by sustain pedal from the start; everything aside from the reverb is produced by the synth's sliders and buttons.  Or in "Koroglu", five notes are put in the arpeggiator at the start, the change in note sequence is due to the strange behavior of the of high-low balance slider.  

The AX60 has (only) a single oscillator per it's six voices.  It's from 1986 so the early digital gizzards make things like slider reaction quite cranky, plus there's no midi implementation to speak of.  But the features laid out on the sliders and buttons, such as the analog oscillator and Curtis-type analog filter, duty cycle on every wave type, selectable LFO, an envelope generator (the VCF EG has invertible polarity), two choruses, an arpeggiator, high-pass, and unusual yet amazingly dynamic and diverse controls such as keyboard high-low level balance and VCO modulation of the VCF… this thing is mad!

imp nr. 8 (improvisation w AX60 & Microverb II)

Live improvisations, no overdubs.  Performed on an Akai AX60 and Microverb II.  Some notes are sustained at the start, the rest is sliders and buttons.

Note to synth-heads.  Whatever you may think of the music itself - or of my preoccupation with nausea or my sometimes heavy-handed reverb use - there's no denying the power and capability of this synth.  It's making all of these sounds at once, and this is just a sample of the kinds of things it can do.  For example in "imp 2B" the two notes heard at the end (Bb and G) are the only notes that have been playing, held by sustain pedal from the start; everything aside from the reverb is produced by the synth's sliders and buttons.  Or in "Koroglu", five notes are put in the arpeggiator at the start, the change in note sequence is due to the strange behavior of the of high-low balance slider.  

The AX60 has (only) a single oscillator per it's six voices.  It's from 1986 so the early digital gizzards make things like slider reaction quite cranky, plus there's no midi implementation to speak of.  But the features laid out on the sliders and buttons, such as the analog oscillator and Curtis-type analog filter, duty cycle on every wave type, selectable LFO, an envelope generator (the VCF EG has invertible polarity), two choruses, an arpeggiator, high-pass, and unusual yet amazingly dynamic and diverse controls such as keyboard high-low level balance and VCO modulation of the VCF… this thing is mad!

imp nr. 2B (improvisation w AX60 & Microverb II)

Live improvisations, no overdubs. Performed on an Akai AX60 and Microverb II. Eb and Db are arpeggiatted at the start, the rest is mainly manipulation of AX60 sliders and buttons.

Note to synth-heads. Whatever you may think of the music itself - or of my preoccupation with nausea or my sometimes heavy-handed reverb use - there's no denying the power and capability of this synth. It's making all of these sounds at once, and this is just a sample of the kinds of things it can do. For example in "imp 2B" the two notes heard at the end (Bb and G) are the only notes that have been playing, held by sustain pedal from the start; everything aside from the reverb is produced by the synth's sliders and buttons. Or in "Koroglu", five notes are put in the arpeggiator at the start, the change in note sequence is due to the strange behavior of the of high-low balance slider.

The AX60 has (only) a single oscillator per it's six voices. It's from 1986 so the early digital gizzards make things like slider reaction quite cranky, plus there's no midi implementation to speak of. But the features laid out on the sliders and buttons, such as the analog oscillator and Curtis-type analog filter, duty cycle on every wave type, selectable LFO, an envelope generator (the VCF EG has invertible polarity), two choruses, an arpeggiator, high-pass, and unusual yet amazingly dynamic and diverse controls such as keyboard high-low level balance and VCO modulation of the VCF… this thing is mad!


Iron Interval (imp nr. 11, improvisation w AX60 & Microverb II)

Akai AX60, dbx 117, Alesis Microverb II, Klark Teknik DN410

imp nr. 18/21 (improvisation w AX60, Microverb II & DN410)

imp nr. 16small (improvisation w AX60, Microverb II & DN410)

New York premiere of Obstinate Duet, performed by Barry J. Crawford (flute) and Carol McGonnell (clarinet), live at St. Peter's Church, NYC, 24 May 2017, a New York Composers Circle concert. 

Recording and video by Jeremy Tressler, Dreamflower Studio.  Thank you to Carol and Barry, also to Richard Brooks, Raoul Pleskow, Sato Moughalian and Allen Blustine.


Program note:
Obstinate Duet is built from a melodious 12-tone row. Each instrument states the row following a repetition of the first three notes. The first statement is on F# and the second on G, and one can hear how the end of each statement tonally invites the beginning of the next. These ideas of cellular repetitions and intervalic relationships generate the rest of the "conversation." The piece owes its style to many early 20th-century 12-tone pieces, which I find have a certain élan and sense of discovery. In keeping with that period, I closely followed standard serialist procedures. I was reading Gustave Flaubert's unfinished final novel Bouvard and Pécuchet at the time of composition and I may have been unconsciously influenced by it, hence the double meaning of the title: it's a duet on an ostinato figure, while also perhaps a character piece on the theme of Flaubert's hilariously obstinate heroes.

NYCC 2017/05/24

Obstinate Duet, New York premiere at St. Peter's Church, NYC

Elegy for my nephew, SGT Joseph P. Collette, who died in action in Afghanistan March 21, 2019 while trying to save a friend.  Performance: Randall Hester (flute), Stephanie Price (viola), memorial service April 25, 2019 at Faith Memorial Church, Lancaster, Ohio.

SGT Joseph P. Collette memorial service, 4/5/2019

Elegy for Joey

Premiere by the Sunderman Woodwind Quintet at a New York Composers Circle concert, 23 April 2019 at Little Church Around the Corner, N.Y.C.  This piece will very likely be revised as I find the result to be overweening, masking my original intentions.  Dedicated (with apologies!) to Richard Brooks and Clifford Hall.

David Mecionis

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