***Please use your fanciest audio equipment*** 

- 1st Prize at the Iannis Xenakis International Electronic Music Competition (2021) form the Contemporary Music Lab 

The intention behind this piece is mainly to construct a discourse distanced from the elements that are traditionally explored in electroacoustic music, eg. texture and timbre. While these elements are undoubtedly present in the piece, it is first and foremost the rhythmic impetus — working around an unstable pulsation — its energy, as well as the imagery and the dramaturgy of the work that is highlighted. 

I have worked exclusively with a collection of sounds from my personal library as well as sounds that have been recuperated online (sort of objets trouvés), like a depository where I drew the parts that were best suited; hence the title “Junkyard Construction”. 
This comes from an interest to work with fairly limited resources (concerning equipment), which is also why it’s a stereophonic piece.
   
“Why stop the swing?” refers not only to the rhythmic content, but also to the swaying of unstable images that are being constantly re-contextualised, progressively detaching and revealing themselves as the inner drama unfolds.

Junkyard Construction: Why stop the swing?

Slide was written for the Arizona State University guitar studio for the 2021 PRISMS festival at ASU. Special thanks to Jiji Kim, Isaac Brady, Alicia Castillo, Zachariah Kinnard, Alex Oliverio, and Bill White.

This is my own recording of the piece: it is the mockup I created while composing the work, and to demonstrate certain techniques to the performers.  

Program notes:

The electric guitar was my first instrument, and the slippery slope that caused me to fall in love with writing music. While composing this piece, I continually asked myself: how can I find something new in the excessively familiar? In attempting to explore the frontiers of this instrument (especially with the use of guitar slides), I discovered new, unexpected techniques, timbres and textures that resemble electronic and electroacoustic musical structures. This work has felt like a return to my roots: the rediscovery of an old friendship, cast under new light.

Slide

perforat[interfer]e explores acoustic phenomena as music material generator. 

Recorded by Cadeaux Quartet at the Ryan Opera Theatre, Northwestern University.

Soprano: Philip Kleutgens
Alto: Yun Qu Tan
Tenor: Brian Kachur
Baritone: Natalia Warthen

perforat[interfer]e (saxophone quartet)

Larghetto Rubato (2010)

bassoon, cello, and guitar

Pascal Gallois, Rohan de Saram, and Magnus Andersson

Larghetto Rubato

trace - écart - for harp, electric guitar, cymbalum, double bass & electronics

Ensemble C Barré
Eva Debonne - harp
Cyril Dupuy - cymbalum
Thomas Keck - guitar
Charlotte Testu - double bass

Mónica Gil & Rudy Romeur - sound engineering

Premiered @ Festival Messiaen au Pays de la Meije 2017
Recorded @ GMEM Marseille

trace - écart [2017] • for harp, electric guitar, cymbalum, double bass & electronics

Prosody for Cello composed in 2016

played by Karolina Öhman

Elusive Voice (Excerpt) for Cello

2018 June in Buffalo festival - SUNY Buffalo
Slee Sinfonietta - Matthew Chamberlain, conducting

Epilogue (2018)

Live recording from Heimathafen, Neukölln, Berlin (Kontraklang) - thanks to Christopher Williams

FURT: sarcophagusK (Berlin 12 February 2015)

'Dissonance of Emancipation'
for ensemble of nine
composed Gregor Forbes, 2019
performed 16 October 2019
Ensemble Avantgarde
Gewandhaus Leipzig, Mendelssohn Saal

Thumbnail image is a painting by Ad Reinhardt

Dissonance of Emancipation

"Wongolo W'ale" for chamber ensemble and Soprano(2011), on a Haitian folksong

Beethausenstro - Castockhoven for Two Pianos & Auxiliary Percussion (2020)

Program Notes:

Diabelli’s commission for a single variation from Beethoven yielded thirty-three variations; a set of variations that attempt to best Bach’s Goldberg. Receiving a similar commission from HereNowHear, founded to perform Stockhausen’s Mantra, I knew I wanted to compose more than one variation, but as an opponent to “best” I decided to focus on beating the Beethoven of Rage, who was younger than I am when he composed it. How does one best a Beethoven not quite thirty? What do I know that he did not? I know late Beethoven and Mantra.

Stockhausen has said of Mantra that it begins with the shortest introduction in the history of music. Finding this statement ridiculous, I decided to expand his introduction, which is a small rhythmic cell that grows proportionately to itself. The cell, in theory, could go on forever. Beethausenstro—Castockhoven is an amalgam of Stockhausen’s Mantra introduction with Beethoven’s Rage and late style.

Beethausenstro—Castockhoven is scored for two pianos with auxiliary percussion. It is a set of three variations that cycle strictly through the opening sixty-four bars of Rage. The first variation is a prelude to the second, a fugue. The fugue is composed in the style of late Beethoven, considering as a model the fugue from Hammerklavier. The final variation acts as a postlude, slowly becoming the opening harmonic framework of Rage. The title of my work builds from a Stockhausen work, Beethausen—Stockhoven. I am grateful to Ryan McCullough and Andrew Zhou for this opportunity to write for them. Happy 250th birthday to Ludwig van Beethoven, that sweet creature of bombast.

Beethausenstro - Castockoven for Two Pianos (2020)

Assistant Professor of Music Composition at Arizona State University. 

gabrielbolanos.com

Slide

Gabriel Bolaños

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