Name: and a break in superflat tensile || by Isaac Barzso
Duration: 10 min 7 s
Description: may 2024; constructed from computer improvisations, march - april.

Suite (2021)
world premiere, recorded at Wigmore Hall, July 2022

Explore Ensemble:
Taylor MacLennon, fl
Alex Roberts, cl
David López Ibáñez, vln
Morag Robertson, vla
Deni Teo, cello
Siwan Rhys, piano/kbd

Nicholas Moroz, audio recording/mixing

full video performance here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlpdFkvEdLo

co-commissioned by Wigmore Hall and Explore Ensemble, supported by Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation

art: Maria Sibylla Merian — ‘Pineapple and examples of five insects’, from Merian's Drawings of Surinam Insects (1701-5)

Prerecorded sounds utilise three public domain field recordings:
1. Sounds of a pier being demolished near the entrance to the Terminal Island Prison and Deportation Center, Los Angeles, US. Rec. Steven Rowell, 2012.
2. School children sing national anthem in the morning before class in Pokigron, Boven, Suriname. Rec. Gerrit Kalsbeek, 2000.
3. Jarred fruit flies trapped in an empty, unrinsed wine bottle, Tartu, Estonia. Rec. Patrick Tubin McGinley, 2011.

Suite

"It's too late now. It will always be too late. Fortunately!"
Albert Camus, The Fall 

The Fall was begun during a residency at STEIM in Amsterdam in December 2011 / January 2012. I made many hours of recordings in and around the city of Amsterdam, with the intention of creating this large scale work.

Elements of the work were incorporated into Residual bits of sunlight, by Andersson Dance in Stockholm. 

The first movement of this work, Too Late, Too Far, was premiered at the International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt in August 2014. 

The Fall (2014)

Anna Korsun FOS, performed by The Monochrome Project, recording of the premier performance at the festival Romanische Sommer 2024, Sankt Gereon, Cologne, on 5th June 2024. 

The Monochrome Project:
Marco Blaauw, Christine Chapman, Christopher Collings, Mathilde Conley, Mechthild Drop, Lucy Humphris, Markus Schwind, Laura Vukobratović

Anna Korsun, FOS, The Monochrome Project

may 2024; constructed from computer improvisations, march - april.

and a break in superflat tensile ||

that i may time transcend,
that a universe my heart may unfold.

my arms and legs rot off and through my blood 
rushed forth;

i am not me. 
i cannot become 
myself

~a series of titles to Takeshi Murakami works, as a poem

premiered 4 november 2024 in paine hall, harvard university

performed by duo XAMP: fanny vicens & jean-ettienne sotty
recorded by jerry macdonald

that we may time transcend | duo xamp | 2024

Concordance (2024)

Please, use headphones or good loudspeakers.

vacant lot (strange bird) (2023), for large amplified ensemble
commissioned by Ensemble Intercontemporain

Live Recording, Klangforum Wien

vacant lot (strange bird) (2023), for large amplified ensemble

Title: given to be heard
Year: 2025
3rd-Order Ambisonics Soundscape

*PLEASE LISTEN WITH HEADPHONES*

given to be heard [binaural soundscape]

performed by Yarn/Wire at Paine Hall, Harvard University on February 28, 2025

Laura Barger – piano
Julia Den Boer – sampler & MIDI controller
Russell Greenberg – percussion
Dennis Sullivan – percussion

recording: Anthony DiBartolo
mix: Isaac Roth Blumfield

Program note:

In English, the word "dream" has a positive connotation, but there is a thin
boundary between a dream and a nightmare, and our experience of dreaming
rarely fits neatly into either category. In dreaming, a fluidity emerges between
bliss and dread, and one's desire to escape reality can collapse at any moment.
Familiar places, people, objects, animals might emerge, and as we dream we
know that it is both really them and really not them at the same time. Something
both illusory and deeply real is happening. While you listen, try to fall asleep.

The electronics for this work were prepared at the Südwestrundfunk Experimentalstudio in Freiburg, Germany through their Workstay program with assistance from Thomas Hummel, sound designer, with recordings performed by James Morley, cello, and Rebecca Lawrence, double bass


Like a dream I can' t wake up from | for Yarn/Wire & electronics (2024-25)

This work is dedicated to Annette Vande Gorne and Musique et Recherches.

A series of memories interrupt, overlap and flow into one another on a summer's day.

This piece is made exclusively from field-recordings taken in Brussels and Ohain in July 2011 and was begun at the studios of M&R and completed in the composer's own studio.

The creation of this piece was supported by the PRS Foundation and the Bliss Trust.

The Sun Warms The Memory (2011)

Bludenzer Tage zeitmäßiger Musik 2019

Performed by Ensemble Distractfold:
Linda Jankowska
Emma Richards
Alice Purton

Recorded by Aaron Holloway-Nahum

sottilissime

phd fellow in multimedia composition @ brown university
mm royal conservatory of the hague '23

and a break in superflat tensile ||

Isaac Barzso

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