Written for and performed by PRISM Quartet during the 48 Hours Composition Symposium at IU.

PRISM Quartet
Timothy McAllister, soprano sax
Zachary Shemon, alto sax
Matthew Levy, tenor sax
Taimur Sullivan, bari sax


PROGRAM NOTES

tl;dr: I smash weird noises and pretty melodies together for a little bit. It sounds like bubbles, kind of. 

For a handful of minutes, the saxophone quartet becomes trapped inside a bubble, using every tool at its disposal to pop the transparent, iridescent, spherical wall. The music explores many physical properties of the bubble, from rubbing its soapy surface to poking sharp dimples into its buoyant body. The sonic landscape shifts between wildly different emotions and styles, bounces between the inspirational and the industrial, and ends with a final cry of clamor in hopes that the bubble will finally burst.

This idea comes directly from my own experiences as an artist in a conservatory: in many ways, we become trapped inside a clear, spherical wall. We nest within our social alcoves and fields of study while constantly peering beyond our comfort zones, elsewhere. We become isolated, consumed entirely by our own creative endeavors, while the freedoms of opportunity and human connection lie just beyond that wobbly wall. 

This idea also surrounds my identity as a growing, professional composer. My most primary and prominent struggle is choosing what kind of music to write, balancing the two questions of "What do my ears want me to write?" and "What does my industry want me to write?" While I know that I should simply compose what I enjoy, there are countless other variables shaping my music, variables outside the jurisdiction of art as a subjective field. Variables such as financial stability, social perception, and survival leave me paralyzed deciding what direction I should take my music and how "contemporary" and "unique" I should make it.

Perhaps this piece is an attempt to reconcile these two questions I balance every time I write a measure of music, every time I think of my profession, and every time I think about my future. Maybe all I need to do is to write some damn good tunes.

Performed on November 6th, 2022 in Recital Hall, Bloomington, IN.

Bubble Machine (2022) for sax quartet

It's an electroacoustic piece. Please, listen with headphones or through external loudspeakers. 
Premiered with a spatial diffusion through Hydra system at Harvard University on the 15th of Dec, 2016.

Cryptic Thingness (2016)

all prayers appreciated

photography by makayla warren
additional design by ella jenkins

lyrics: https://genius.com/stuart-clark-all-prayers-appreciated-lyrics
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INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/realsngc
TWITTER: twitter.com/realsngc

all prayers appreciated

all prayers appreciated. thank you for your patience.
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lyrics on genius.com/stuart-clark-thank-you-for-your-patience-lyrics

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additional design by ella jenkins

thank you for your patience

CALL ME CLARK

Want to buy this track or the sheet music? It will be available soon! Please visit my website, rynjorgensen.com, for more information.

If You Remember Everything

Evan Fontaine (b. 2000) is a composer, vocalist, and saxophonist from Greenfield, Indiana. He recently graduated from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music with a B.M. in Composition with a Minor in Music Scoring for Visual Media. During his time at Jacobs, he studied with Felipe Tovar-Henao, Don Freund, PQ Phan, Aaron Travers, Andreia Pinto-Correia, and Han Lash.

His compositional palette draws from an eclectic range of styles, including jazz, folk, pop, and electronic music. The sound of his work tends to blur the lines between these idioms, often toying with non-sequiturs and collage techniques to craft a kaleidoscope of colors, tones, and patterns. He is especially intrigued by new types of harmonic and acoustic beauty, which explore the boundaries between consonance and dissonance, the sentimental and the satirical, and unusual instrument combinations. These fundamental aesthetic values culminate in a sound that can only be described as whimsical, groovy, absurd, dramatic, playful, and, perhaps, mildly scatterbrained.

Bubble Machine (2022) for sax quartet

Evan Fontaine

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