Over the last six years or so, I have re-embraced working with hardware modular synthesizers, especially those whose design reflects the work of West Coast synth pioneer Donald Buchla.  "No Margarine for Error" was written to be performed on a MakeNoise-based Eurorack system, using musíque concréte, tape, and granular techniques, along with sequenced loops and knob-twisting.

The whole of it can become quite silly.

The title refers to the knife's edge danger that all live performances contain, expressed in the near homophone-esque pun, a favorite device seen in other titles of pieces of mine such as "Sleight of Band," "Ecstatic Cling," and others.  this wordplay also extends to the subtitle "an olio in five parts;" olio is oil in Italian (and so is not margarine nor butter), but in theatre or vaudeville it refers to a collection of musical numbers as an encore.  In plain English it is a hodgepodge.  Spelled slightly differently, it is of course, another name for margarine.  Slick, ain't it!?

No Margarine for Error

I am an eclectic composer who writes with a postmodern mischievousness: my pieces can be comedic/ironic, simple/complex, or humble/reverent. My recent projects have taken a turn toward turn towards the sweeter side, exploring a consonant adiatonicism.

No Margarine for Error

FRANK FELICE, composer