belly of a snake for percussion+electronics+variable instruments

Belly Of A Snake

why the trees were murmuring 
for orchestra, improvising trombonist and two spatial ensemble 
commissioned by Steven and Brenda Schick
soloist: Peter Sloan 
conductor: Steven Schick
written for the La Jolla Symphony
Premiere, San Diego, February 2020 
live-recording
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some words about the piece: 

Why the trees were murmuring is an appreciation of diversity and community. 
In writing this piece, I was moved to explore these themes from various perspectives. Performers are positioned around the concert hall and sounds are embracing the audience. A unique collection of diverse materials and practices has come together and formed a hybrid assemblage in which different kinds of musical practices such as - improvisation, vocalization, and spatialization have joined the orchestra and created a multi-diverse community. 
 
The composition of the musical material is also influenced and shaped based on the qualities of a diversified community.  Aside from having an improviser soloist on the stage, the spatialized ensemble surrounding the audience, and the extensive exploration of instrumental colors, every group of instruments functions additionally as soloists in one or more parts of the piece. At the same time that everything is precisely notated, there is always a level of freedom in every section, which allows the realization of the piece to be a co-joint act.  
 
 
Why the trees were murmuring reveals a journey of the colorful pallet of instrumental sounds hybridized with the whisperings of the fragmented texts. These snippets of texts are selected from Braiding Sweetgrass, written by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and poems by the iconoclast Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad. 
The piece unfolds into an improvised coda by the orchestra, amidst the bird calls, various bells, the traces of hope, light, and love from the orchestra and the solo trombone and ultimately the orchestra whispering  … “I will greet the sun again” …
 
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why the trees were murmuring (2020)

This is a little compilation of just a few of the works in progress for the piece 'Inscriptions' it will eventually consist of many fragments that are woven together with readings/video. and a binding mis-en-scene.  
Textually, its focus is on epigrams (literally translated as ‘Inscriptions’ from the Greek); which, in themselves, provide huge insight into the development of poetry and its intertwining with memory and time: with aphoristic statements on life, reflections on the human condition, musings on loss,  documentation of desire, plays with words and concepts, but above all the trickery of time itself.  They function as a strange quotidian snapshot onto that period with all its distorted encapsulations of beauty, power, and rhetorical address. 
These feature: Cristina Grifone - Voice
                          Joe Zeitlin - 'Cello(s)
                          David Ryan - bass clarinet/zither/lyre 
                          Dave Fowler: percussion
                          Simon Allen: stringed percussion

'Inscriptions' short taster compilation

flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano, percussion instruments
and experimental animation
link to video: https://vimeo.com/778634629

premiered by ensemble recherche at Harvard University

animal is about a creature stuck in a claustrophobic room. It doesn't know what it is or where it belongs.
trying to remember, am I one or thousands?
maybe flesh? Or stone? Perhaps a color?
or a sea of earth.
trying to remember, it forgets.
as a sudden impulsive act of madness, it takes refuge to the unknown. so, it unfolds. to see how it is to feel. but what is growing inside of me? is it my face? arms? legs? my teeth?
i think I’m growing a new organ.

Animal

"Earthward, Ever Circling" (2023) is the first piece in Anna Berg's trilogy that revolves around the ancient Vietnamese Buddhist funeral ritual of playing music for the deceased to help the soul in the reincarnation process. 

The piece was commissioned by Guro Kleven Hagen, Eivind Ringstad and Amalie Stalheim, with support by The Norwegian Composers’ fund. 

The recording is from the premiere February 25th 2023 at Interpuls festival. The mastering is by Mats Claesson. 

Performers
Guro Kleven Hagen, violin
Eivind Ringstad, viola
Sverre Barratt-Due, cello

Score:
https://www.nb.no/noter/produkt/earthward-ever-circling-for-string-trio/

Earthward, Ever Circling (2023) for string trio

"Earthward, Ever Circling" (2023) is the second piece in Anna Berg's trilogy that revolves around the ancient Vietnamese Buddhist funeral ritual of playing music for the deceased to help the soul in the reincarnation process.

Performed by Ensemble NEXT and Simon Proust, conductor

Ensemble NEXT
Minaya Chapelain, flute
Jasmine Daquin, oboe/English horn
Akiho Nishimura, clarinets (Bb and bass)
Miho Kiyokawa, tenor and soprano saxophone
Reika Sato, violin
Sengyun Kim, viola
Yi Zhou, cello
Vincent Alves De Palma Delia, double bass

The recording is from the premiere in Paris, 21.03.2023.

Credits from the team at CNSMDP.
Alexis Ling, responsable du service audiovisuel
Frédéric Martin, réalisateur
Théo Clavere, chef monteur – assistant réalisateur
Jean-Marc Lyzwa, ingénieur du son
Julien Aléonard, projection sonore
Jacques Warnier, régie informatique
Jacques Warnier, Olviier Montagnon, conception, fabrication des jouets
Caroline Christiaens, conseillère musicale
Nathan Robain, direction artistique

Mastering by
Mats Claesson

Twirling, Revolving (2023) for chamber ensemble

This is the first of a series of exploratory rehearsals in Rome with Beatrice Miniaci - Bass Flute; Gabriele Pagliano - Contrabass; David Ryan - Bass Clarinet.  Literally we were exploring and finding a way together...

Miniaci - Pagliano - Ryan: 'Finding a Way (b)'

Composed by Joan Arnau Pàmies

Live performance from May 12th, 2018 at Project Q / Innovator Lab.

Produktionsmittel I - Joan Arnau Pàmies

Studio recording of Sad Music for Lonely People, Oct 2023. Matthias Engler and Gunnhildur Einarsdottir.

Sad Music For Lonely People

for Del Sol String Quartet
performed at UC Irvine

Rock Cloud

'Sanjo' for double bass(es), Dominic Lash, double bass.   This piece was composed in dialogue with the performer.  In this case, the first stage was a 'number score' which was ascribed musical events, according to certain rules, by the performer and functioned as a pre-recorded 'ground'.  This realisation was sent back to me, and I responded by making a more fuller notated score in response.  This was then sent back to the bassist who played the new score with , and against, the earlier recorded ground.  Essentially it is akin to accompaniment and solo (each being doubled).
It also relates to the traditional Korean musical form of Sanjo (meaning 'scattered melodies') though more as an oblique homage rather than any 'cultural appropriation', as the piece has its own processes of formation. However it has some concrete links with the sense of 'call and response', solo and accompaniment, and (sometimes) the vocal interjection of players.  The present piece is structured around a doubling of space, whereby the solo performer becomes multiple.  This is a 5' extract of the full track to be released on the Aural Terrains label June 2022.

'Sanjo' for double bass(es)- for Dominic Lash (Extract)

David Ryan is a visual artist, musician and writer who is actively involved in contemporary music. Publications include ‘We Have Eyes as Well as Ears: Experimental Music and the Visual Arts’ in The Ashgate Research Companion to Experimental Music, (Ashgate, 2009); ‘Changing the System: Indeterminacy and Politics in the 1970s’ in Christian Wolff: Changing the System, (Ashgate, 2010), and forthcoming, ‘Drawing Towards Sound: Notations, Diagrams, Drawings’ in A Companion to Contemporary Drawing Wiley-Blackwell, 2020. He has also exhibited widely with exhibitions and screenings at the Whitechapel Gallery, Flowers East London, Flowers West, California USA, Konzerthaus, Berlin; Recent exhibitions include Crossing Abstraction at Kunstlerhaus Bethianen, Berlin (2009), and the Kunsthaus and Forum Konkrete Kunst, Erfurt, Germany (2012), he curated At the Point of Gesture (2013) at the Lion and Lamb Gallery and Wimbledon Space (2015); He was included in After Image (Emerson Gallery, Berlin 2013), June Mostra, British School at Rome and Spazi Aperti, Accademia di Romana, Roma (2016). He has broadcast for Danish Radio, BBC Radio 3 (Stockhausen with Apartment House), Resonance FM and Radiophrenia at CCA Glasgow (2016).  Screenings have taken place at Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire; Issue Project Space, New York; Fondazione Isabella Scelsi, Rome (2010); Darmstadt Ferienkurse for Neue Musik (2011); V22 Space, London (2012); Logos, Ghent; Qo2 in Brussels, Belgium (2012); Institute of Contemporary Art (2015), London; a screening and performance at the Teatro Arsenale, as part of the Venice Biennale (2015), AngelicA, Bologna (2016), and the British School at Rome (2017). He is performing as a trio with Sabina Meyer, voice, and Alberto Popolla, winds; the Opera Aperta project, and  - when he can - the London Improviser's Orchestra.

Miniaci - Pagliano - Ryan: 'Finding a Way (b)'

David Ryan

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