The music, sounds, and stories of composer Miguel Frasconi, known for work with instruments made from glass and also a master of analog electronic sound. Here are solos for glass, mbira, and a piece for the Jack String Quartet, all recorded in concert at Roulette, plus a 1995 electronic trio with J.A. Deane and Bob Ostertag recorded at the Hotel Utah in San Francisco.

roulette.org

Miguel Frasconi: Breaking Glass

Quartet for Piano and Strings (A Sea Liturgy) (2009) was jointly commissioned for the Moscow Studio for New Music and the Arcturus Chamber Ensemble (Sarah Darling, artistic director). It is dedicated to the Arcturus Chamber Ensemble on its 10th anniversary.

The work is cast in a single movement and is conceived as a “sea liturgy.” It attempts to conjure up an imagined set of spiritual rituals (not connected to any specific religion)—a ceremony of transformation and renewal performed in the context of a sea landscape.

Though not broken into movements, the formal design of the work could be seen as follows:

Processional — (Ritornello) — Invocation — Offering — (Ritornello) — Baptism — Rebirth — Recessional

As with so many of my works, much of the initial musical planning took place in the context of the oceanscapes of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. Those particular sea landscape were foremost in my mind while writing. The listener may also discard the imagined liturgical apparatus and simply listen to the work as a series of seascapes. (For the purposes of narrative clarity, the above section descriptors will be used in the below narrative.)

The opening Processional begins with focused, austere intensity: the instruments unfold from a single pitch (E) into a more rich harmonic landscape. A Ritornello of pulsating string harmonics leads into Invocation, a warmly lyrical discourse. The Offering is a faster, jubilant development of the Invocation, where the prayerful melodies of the Invocation are transformed into a gift for the sea. A return of the Ritornello leads to the Baptism. In this section, heterophonic melodies unfold out of the new substrate pitch (D). In the transforming crucible of the water, these lines becomes more and more extended harmonically. The Rebirth is a dancing development of the Baptism; the harmonic extensions are pushed from dissonance into chords of pure joy. Emerging out of the afterglow of the Rebirth is the Recessional, in which the music of the Processional is revisited, now transformed by the ritual to center on the pitch D. The Recessional fades away peacefully, yet fervently.

This recording is available on the CD "Carson Cooman: A Trip to the Sky":

http://www.carsoncooman.com/recordings.html#ATRIP

Nora Skuta, piano and the Zwiebel Quartet

Quartet for Piano and Strings (A Sea Liturgy) (2009)

The Evening Choir (2012) for chorus, soloists, and organ was commissioned by The Memorial Church at Harvard University to celebrate the dedication of the C. B. Fisk organ, Op. 139: the Charles B. Fisk and Peter J. Gomes Memorial Organ. The work is dedicated in memory of Peter J. Gomes (1942–2011), for whose personal support and encouragement I will be forever grateful.

The text is an extended poem by Jones Very (1813–1880), a mystical figure associated with the American Transcendentalism movement. A graduate of Harvard University (1846) and Harvard Divinity School, Very produced a large body work in a personal style that was much appreciated and praised by his Transcendentalist colleagues. Much like the English poet Christopher Smart, Very suffered from issues of mental health and religious delusions (believing at times he was the Second Coming of Christ), and was institutionalized for a number of years. Upon his release, he was helped in the publication of his work particularly by Ralph Waldo Emerson (who believed strongly in Very’s sanity—“Such a mind cannot be lost,” Emerson wrote). Very spent most of the remainder of his life as a recluse under the care of his sister, and in the last 40 years of his life produced little work and made almost no public appearances due to crippling shyness. Though some of his poems were published in his lifetime, the vast majority were only circulated privately among the Transcendentalists. Though Very’s work was highly regarded by his contemporaries, it was only with the publication of Helen R. Deese’s critical edition of his complete poems (862 of them) in 1993 that his achievements have been more broadly acknowledged and praised by the wider community of scholars and poetry lovers.

“The Evening Choir” was one of the poems published during Very’s lifetime under Emerson’s direction. After its publication in the journal The Dial, Very was disturbed to see that Emerson had made various editorial changes and wrote to him saying: “I found my poem ‘The Evening Choir’ altered considerably from what I had written—I do not know but in one or two cases for the better. Perhaps they were all improvements but I preferred my own lines. I do not know but I ought to submit to such changes as done by the rightful authority of an Editor but I felt a little sad at the aspect of the piece.” Unfortunately, no manuscript copy of this poem survives, so Emerson’s edited version is what must be used.

The poem is set as a cantata—involving choir, four soloists, and prominent use of the organ. Given the dramatic nature of the text, the work is rather more austere and apocalyptic than most of my choral music to date. I sought to create a musical analogue to the blazingly vivid sound of Very’s verse.

Harvard University Choir; Edward Elwyn Jones, conductor; Christian Lane, organ

The full text of the poem may be read (on pages 2 and 3) of this PDF:

http://www.carsoncooman.com/pdf/theeveningchoir-notes.pdf

The Evening Choir (2012) for chorus, soloists, and organ

This is a recording of the astral plane during an unnecessary and cruel tragedy. The text following is an attempt at translating the testament of Solar Angel 181818 (the angel of resentment) to the Tribunal of Masters regarding a helicopter accident in 1978 in Derry, Pennsylvania.
THE EVENT IN DETAIL: A helicopter at a large public gathering went sideways into some power lines, turned upside down and left gruesome results. The cold, mechanical cruelty of the helicopter blades left scars on every plane, physical, astral, even divine. 

The following is the best attempt to transcribe the akashic records by an adept from the notes of the deposition of SA 181818 (Resentment) by a tribunal of Masters of the Blue and White Lodges of the Earth Logos. 
(Note from the translator and medium: please, understand that these records can barely be understood in the realm of language - the depth of meaning in the combination of sound, vision and sense can only be approximate. There are few words - read them again as much as you must.The meaning contained in these words ring true only through experience and sometimes cruel repetition. These words are only cloaks, sheaths for the records kept by  the angels, communicated through a miasma of thought forms of astral and etheric matter telepathically. When the truth inside of them is divined from experience and known, the vibrations between the eyebrow and the emission from the solar plexus will harmonize into a lovely chord, to be met with the voice, or vibration of the larynx. To know something is to learn of it - to understand it is to work with it - the initiate returns with wisdom, for without the wisdom gleaned from knowledge and experience, initiation is not possible.) 

A lesson, they tried to reach
the heavens - and they focus
the energies bestowed upon them
Into inane endeavours. 
If i am they and we are us, 
It is necessary that I preserve US.
When arrogance is recognized,
It must be dealt with swiftly -
And if cruelty arrives,
Then a point is made - 
Do not let the machines they make
Become their God. 
 
A sound rings forth. This is not accepted.
If it cannot be accepted, it must be changed.
There is no arguing this. 

A plea is made.  

I am essential in the miasma,
I am the example of how not to be.
The light each person takes creates a shadow
And in it you will find me -

Three vibrations rang forth, sounding the chord of the new plane.
181818 was cast to Earth.

astral recording derry 1978

"Wonder and Astonishment" is a recording of my composition for two pipe organs in two locations.  This recording by Josh Perschbacher includes both 'halves' of the recording originally intended for the Casavant Organ in Mahtomedi, Minnesota, and the Disney Concert Hall Organ in Los Angeles. Both halves were recorded in Mahtomedi before Josh's session in Los Angeles. Josh died on March 16, 2015, before completing the Disney Hall portion of the project. This is the final recording session by Josh Perschbacher, lost to us a day after his 39th birthday.

Wonder and Astonishment

A through-composed piece for solo piano, written as a sort of cross between Joni Mitchell and Morton Feldman. I am playing piano. Recorded at The Music Gallery, Toronto, 1978.

Part of my #audioTBT (Throwback Thursdays) weekly series drawing from my personal archives.

Image from Giorgio Morandi "Natura Morta," 1938.

Other Still Life (1978)

The opening music for A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil sans vocals. 

Academy Of Science

This guest mix, curated and produced by Lisbon-based DJ Carlo Patrão was originally broadcast on Rádio Universidade de Coimbra: www.ruc.fm/ 107.9 FM. An accompanying guide to the music and studies featured can be found at https://zepelimradio.com/

Full track list located at:
https://www.datagarden.org/post/2017/11/14/plant-consciouness-communication

Academy Of Science

Erling Wold