under.exposed is a short piece which was recently used as part of the score to Clings and Burns, a film by Buffalo artist Bob Fleming.  Clings and Burns examines the experience of the filmmaker's father in World War II, in particular, his role in the firebombing of Japanese cities like Nagoya.  under.exposed uses sounds recorded by NASA as source material, juxtaposing two of 20th century America's highest aspirations—the transcendence of the Earth through interstellar exploration, and the dominance of the planet through military supremacy—each inseparable from the other in their resources (e.g., surveillance technologies) and expansionist ambition.

under.exposed

Ethan Hayden performs Dmitri Kourliandski's "Voice-off" (2008) live at 'null point 3: impossibilities' (November 15, 2014).

Program note:
The idea of the piece is the voice birth. It borns out of "side" noises produced by the vocal, breath and articulation systems. "Voice-off" means voice behind the screen. However, in this piece I was interested in overlapping different voice/sound layers. The vocal apparatus is divided into several independent lines/parts - sounds produced by lips, tongue, teeth, cheeks, gutter, vocal chords etc. Normal singing appears to be just one of many elements. All these elements are independent like instrumental parts in a chamber ensemble. Their counteraction forms a multilayer structure within which the "lips' part" can form a duo with the "gutter part", and the "vocal part" solo can rise over them.



Kourliandski - Voice-off

An unseen landscape in 300 GHz consists of field recordings of a wide band of the radio range of the electromagnetic spectrum made in so-called Erie, PA in March 2024.  Following in the tradition of Christina Kubisch's Electrical Walks, the piece is an investigation of the invisible topography of environmental radiation produced by electrical devices like neon advertisements, traffic signals, ATMs, and other facilitators of communication, surveillance, capital, and art.  The majority of these recordings were made inside FEED Media Art Center, and include documentation of the colors and rhythms of the radiation produced by the digital artworks exhibited in the space, including Alex "lonesav" Staley and Dr. Moiya McTier's Eclipsing Stars project.  FEED's enormous collection of cathode-ray tube TVs and LCD projectors created a dynamic panorama of longwave radiation and vivid interferences.  Additional recordings were taken from an outdoor electrical walk down the city's central State Street.

An unseen landscape in 300 GHz

"…ce dangereux supplément…" is a set of phonetic studies for voice, video, and electronics. A suite of three pieces [(tRas), (spɛktʁ), and (sɑ̃dʁ)] the work is based on a close examination of the sounds used in everyday linguistic activity, which are juxtaposed against more extreme vocal effects. The live performance is supplemented with electronic voices which stretch and transform this common vocality. The visuals range from rapid-fire successions of symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet, to more suspended meditations on elaborately arranged orthographic tapestries made from the same symbols.

"…ce dangereux supplément…" is a poetic rehearsal of the Derridean supplement, that unbelonging excess in a binary opposition which is (contradictorily) crucially indispensable. This takes place throughout the work via a dialectic between linguistic articulation (consonants) and voiced intonation (vowels). While moving between these two poles, the performer acts out a futile search for the primary referent (or "master signifier"), but eventually realizes all that is to be found is an infinite hauntology, a spectral chain of traces, specters, and cinders.

Recording with visuals:  https://vimeo.com/156198149

“…ce dangereux supplément…”

From Ethan Hayden's Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers. Performed by Julia Anne Cordani, Kristen Smigielski, Jessie Downs, Jonathan Sandberg, Zane Merritt, Ethan Hayden, May 13, 2016.  Conducted by Matthew Chamberlain.

N. 1 - Un cygne qui s'etait evadéde sa cage

Performed by Ethan Hayden & Girilal Baars (voices); April 28, 2016 Pausa Art House (Buffalo, NY).

Recorded by Tyler Smith.

John Cage - Solo for Voice 67 (w/Girilal Baars)

John Cage - Solos for Voice 12 & 73 (w/Girilal Baars)

First movement of Violetear (2017) for solo oboe.

Performed by Megan Kyle (oboe) at Baird Recital Hall (October 5, 2017).  Recorded by Chris Jacobs.

Violetear (Woodstar)

HaEccEity / QuiDDity is a performative installation that manipulates the ambient sounds of a space using a variety of signal processes including high-definition FFT equalization, sinusoidal analysis/resynthesis, and delay/feedback.  Through these techniques, the piece highlights or obscures different parts of the ambient spectrum, while also adding its own coloration and sonic presence.  The piece can be performed indoors or outdoors for any duration.

This recording consists of excerpts from an installation at Buffalo NY's Burchfield Penney Art Center, during their annual Stay Gold event (December 8, 2017).

HaEccEity / QuiDDity

"For what is so grotesquely reduced is, in a sense, liberated from its meaning—its tininess being the outstanding thing about it. It is both a whole (that is, complete) and a fragment (so tiny, the wrong scale)."
- Susan Sontag, Under the Sign of Saturn

Performed by Wooden Cities: Megan Kyle (oboe), David Wegehaupt (tenor sax), Nathan Heidelberger (horn/melodica), John Smigielski (percussion), Zane Merritt (guitar), Hangyu Bai (piano), Esin Gündüz (voice), Ethan Hayden (voice/trombone/electronics), Evan Courtin (violin), Nancy Baun (cello), Brendan Fitzgerald (conductor). Recorded at Pausa Art House, March 10, 2016 by David Wegehaupt.

Let's celebrate our corpse-strewn future!

a single monophonic melody clumsily sputtering between the loudspeakers, like a confused tourist or a caged weasel

created using a digital FM synthesizer I inadvertently built incorrectly

Are you ripe at last, my slim pale double-breasted turd?

Ethan Hayden is a composer, performer, and author based in Buffalo, NY. He has written music for various performing forces, ranging from solo instruments to large ensembles, often involving electronics. Recent works reflect an ongoing interest in language, phonetics, and sound poetry, as well as large-scale explorations of timbre, resonance, and sonic spectra. His music has been performed at conferences and festivals around the world, most recently at Ljudbio (Uppsala, Sweden), INTIME (Coventry, UK), Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium (Toronto, ON), and E-Poetry (Buenos Aires).

Ethan received his Ph.D. in Composition from the University at Buffalo in 2016. He also holds undergraduate degrees in Composition and Theory from the University of North Texas, and an M.A. in Composition from UB. His principal teachers have included Cort Lippe, Jeffrey Stadelman, Joseph Klein, Andrew May, and David Bithell. In 2015, Ethan joined the Digital Music Production faculty at Buffalo State College where he teaches courses in sound synthesis, electronic music composition, and serves as interim-director of the Digital Music Ensemble.

Ethan is the Associate Director of Wooden Cities, a Buffalo-based ensemble seeking to help increase the performance and awareness of contemporary music in Western New York. With Wooden Cities, he has co-produced over thirty concerts of new and experimental music across the Midwest, frequently premiering new works by emerging composers. As a vocalist, he regularly performs contemporary music, sound poetry, and improvisational works. Recent performances have included pieces by Georges Aperghis, Charles Ives, Dmitri Kourliandski, Kurt Schwitters, and John Zorn, as well as collaborations with Steve McCaffery and Null Point.

Also active as a writer and researcher on music, Ethan is the author of Sigur Rós's ( ), published as part of Bloomsbury's 33⅓ series in August 2014.

EthanHayden

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