Recorded live at INTONAZIONE festival on 20 Sep 2019 at Eremo Santa Caterina in Rio nell'Elba, performed by Rafał Zalech (viola & live-electronics)during a dance performance of Andrea Nagl. Mixed and produced by Karlheinz Essl.

Sequitur is a series of compositions for various solo instruments and live-electronics which I started in 2008. Somehow it can be seen as a reference to Berio’s famous “Sequenze” cycle of solo pieces which focus on specific playing techniques of the respective instrument.

All Sequitur compositions use a software written in MaxMSP which creates an electronic accompaniment from the instrument’s live input; the player is confronted with his own playing, and this creates a situation like moving in a house of mirrors where the identities become blurred. Each piece can be performed by the player alone who just has to press a key on the computer keyboard whenever this is indicated in the score. The software generates a complex canon on the fly, the temporal structure and density of which being controlled by random operations. This yields different results every time the piece is performed. Although following a precisely notated score, there is always a good portion of surprise for the musician which emphasizes his awareness and attentiveness.

More information: http://www.essl.at/works/sequitur.html

Sequitur

Sequitur IIIb

Info

Sequitur IIIb (2008/2018)for viola and live-electronics

Born 1960 in Vienna. Austrian composer, improviser and performer. He studied composition with Friedrich Cerha and musicology in Vienna. Besides writing experimental instrumental music, he performs on his own electronic instrument m@ze°2, develops software environments for computer-aided composition and creates generative sound and video environments. Since 2007 professor of composition for electro-acoustic and experimental music at the University of Music in Vienna.

Karlheinz Essl performs on a laptop computer that he has transformed into a live electronic musical instrument. The result is exciting and musical. You just won't hear these sounds anywhere else. He performs solo and in duets and trios, responding with sensitivity to fellow musicians, producing fascinating sound transformations, creating spontaneous surprises, and moving quickly from loops to cacophony to tiny clips of vocal sounds to all kinds of textures and ideas. He does all this with his m@ze°2(Modular Algorithmic Zound Environment) performance software. (Joel Chadabe, CDeMusic, Januar 2002)
