Necessity

Infinity

Gravity

Possibilities

The Self

Limitless

Volatilis I started as an idea to write a piece for a large ensemble that could be played by high school or even middle school groups by relying on the talent of the conductor to shape the music. The piece is designed so that most players have musical material that they play on loop, entering, exiting and moving to the front or back of the texture as the conductor indicates. On top of these layers of sound, the conductor brings in two separate foreground layers, one high and one low, for single hits at points loosely designated in the score. The overall effect sounds like placing stars against the night sky; tiny bright pinpricks of sound, on a mostly uniform background texture.

Volatilis 1

Rude Gestures began as a series of inside-the-piano improvisations which I compiled in my first quarter at UC Davis. The different improvisations helped me to build a vocabulary of different sounds that could be achieved inside the piano. This piece, in particular, makes use of several different kinds of mallet and centers around a central gestural motif. The motif is the first thing that we hear, with a very hard attack, and it travels through a handful of different soundscapes, losing its harsh attack throughout. The initial attack represents a rude gesture made by someone else and directed at the individual, or vice versa. These moments tend to stick in my mind and distort over time, softening sometimes into a kind of understanding, or hardening into blame. Frequently, rude gestures beget other rude gestures, they cause one another.

Joseph Vasinda