The death of my mentor and friend, Allan Schindler, on October 8th, 2018 hit me hard. From him I had learned not only technical skills and musical imagination. Allan taught me, by example, about artistic sincerity and the genuine expression of humanity through art (music that "makes you happy to be alive"). He also taught me how to be a teacher and and a mentor, how to support and encourage those around you to thrive.

Through the Door is a reflection of a memory of waiting outside Allan's ​office to meet with him for a lesson, hearing the strange sonorities emanating through the door from his piano, knowing these sounds were the root of some new piece he would later refine at the computer.

The piece is rooted in a brief passage from Allan's 1997 piece, Breath of Life, a moment early-on where we hear the child's breath for the first time. This moment begins Through the Door, followed by the sound of Allan's inhale (taken from an interview of him speaking about his own work) and my own consequent exhale, leading to a series of labored breaths I recorded of myself soon after hearing of Allan's passing.

The piece was written for a memorial concert featuring primarily Allan's own music. the 2:00 duration was by request, as so many students and colleagues had offered dedicatory works.

https://gregwilder.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Allan-Schindler-Memorial-Concert-Program.pdf

Through The Door

Brief introduction piece at Bleep Salon (Tom Bruce et al, Feb 2019), a long-neglected upload. Bowed cymbals, gate spring resonators, kacapi, laptop/SuperCollider.

Bleep Salon, introduction

IMAGE: John Roark (http://www.johnroarkmedia.com)

I was recently commissioned to write music for Google Glass--the first piece of its kind, as far as I know--as part of Google's "Glass Explorer" program. My response, "AdWords™/Edward", is dedicated to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

In it, performers *wink* to advance through a series of short, looped phrases displayed in their glasses...stylistic homage to Terry Riley's "In C", celebrating its 50th Anniversary year in 2014.

The piece, linked below in a shortened "radio mix" version, is for bass clarinet, prepared piano, electronics/laptop, and drums with spoken text as follows:

TEXT:
AdWords™
Ed's words
Ed-ward

Ed's words know

Edward knows them
Edward pwned (owned) them
Edward snowed them

Edward Snowden

Performers: Cynthia Johnston Turner (conductor/electronics), Tyler L. Ehrlich, Andre Hafner (prepared piano), myself (drums and voice).

AdWords™/Edward

Roses Don’t Need Perfume takes its title from a quotation by Uruguayan writer/philosopher (…journalist, historian…), Eduardo Galeano.  In a recent interview, Galeano reflected on his own work and how, in a world of spin and manipulated language, one recognize truth.

In the first case, Roses… treats the notion of truth literally as the guitar is almost never “touched”/manipulated by the player, it sounds “as it is”.  Nearly every note is a natural harmonic and the entire electronic part (minus the use of spoken text) is derived from the instrument itself.  In the opening phrase, the guitarist slowly releases two fretted/stopped B naturals, allowing the natural harmonics directly beneath them (also B naturals) to sound.  The whole gesture, therefore, is that of simply lifting the hand to allow the guitar to speak for the remainder of the piece.

The three movements are continuous (attacca).

I. O Viole Elastique (The Toy Guitar): This movement is a setting of a photograph of the same title by an anonymous photographer.  In it a boy climbs a hill with a large bowl of laundry on top of his head.  A toy guitar strung over his shoulder waits to be played.  Tht title contains a word play that makes my direct translation deceptive: it refers to the instrument (a guitar/viol with elastic or plastic strings) as well as the idea of the fabric/clothing and of “violation”.

II. La Casa de las Flores (The House of Flowers): The title comes from Pablo Neruda’s poem Explico algunas cosas (“I explain a few things”), particularly its opening reference to his childhood home, destroyed during the Spanish Civil War : “My house was named /the house of the flowers, because everywhere /geraniums exploded: it was /a beautiful house / with dogs and little children. /Remember, Raul?/Eh, Rafel? /Federico, do you remember..”  This text, spoken by Neruda himself, appears within in the electronic part.  The final name he calls to, “Federico” is Federico García Lorca and the music here refers through Lorca to George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children.

III. Compana de palo (Wooden Bells): Galeano uses the phrase “compana de palo” to describe the voiceless people, those whose village tower contains only a “wooden bell”, a silouette cut to appear real but unable to make any sound.  There is a secondary reference to the Argentine anarchist cultural magazine of the same title “Le Compana de Palo”, published in 1925-27, that included lively debates on art, literature, music, and social anarchy in South America.

Roses Don't Need Perfume

To Be Neither Proud Nor Ashamed takes its title from Cecil Forsyth’s description of the saxophone in his 1913 orchestration text as having no history “of which to be either proud or ashamed”.  The piece was composed and developed in collaboration with saxophonist Randall Hall, the electronic part being the result of many hours of private recording sessions exploring his unique timbral pallet.

http://digital.music.cornell.edu/kevinernste/tbnpna/

To Be Neither Proud Nor Ashamed - For Saxophone And Electronics

“Each act is virgin, even the repeated one”. (Cage quoting René Char).

A palimpsest is a manuscript whose original text has been scraped or washed away and overwritten with a new one. My Palimpsest for string quartet and electronics is a set of allusive “overwritings,” personal compositional dialogues with other musics and their (sometimes hidden) references and meanings.

Frontispice (onto Ravel on Schoenberg through DeGaetani) references two later song cycles by Ravel, his Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé (1913) and the Chansons Madécasses (1926), elements of which seem to spring more from Schoenberg’s early atonal (or very late tonal) language than from the composer of Mother Goose. A vestige of Mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani’s voice appears in the electronic part, singing text from the latter cycle’s final song, “Il est doux” (“It is sweet”): (“Singing pleases my soul; and dancing is nearly as sweet as a kiss.”), mingling with recurring quotations of the first drone and very last chord of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht.

Palimpsest, Part I: Frontispice (onto Ravel on Schoenberg through DeGaetani)

“Each act is virgin, even the repeated one”. (Cage quoting René Char).

A palimpsest is a manuscript whose original text has been scraped or washed away and overwritten with a new one. My Palimpsest for string quartet and electronics is a set of allusive “overwritings,” personal compositional dialogues with other musics and their (sometimes hidden) references and meanings.

Quodlibet (onto Cage on Satie, Boulez, and Duchamp) points to the work and philosophy of John Cage, particularly his 1950 Quartet in Four Parts. Like the 1950 Quartet, Quodlibet is constructed of musical “gamuts”: short, highly-detailed sonic/musical moments initial composed without regard to their eventual context. The electronic part uses Cage’s spoken voice, often quoting or paraphrasing others, referring back to Cage’s own ideas about music.

Palimpsest, Part 2: Quodlibet (onto Cage on Satie, Boulez, and Duchamp)

“Each act is virgin, even the repeated one”. (Cage quoting René Char).

A palimpsest is a manuscript whose original text has been scraped or washed away and overwritten with a new one. My Palimpsest for string quartet and electronics is a set of allusive “overwritings,” personal compositional dialogues with other musics and their (sometimes hidden) references and meanings.

Lachrymae (onto Crumb on Dowland) echoes George Crumb’s use of John Dowland’s 1596 Pavana Lachrymae (“Flow my Tears”) within his 1970 Black Angels, bringing the Dowland melody and text to the musical surface and resonating it within my own melancholic, Crumb-inspired harmonic and timbral world.

Palimpsest, Part 3: Lachrymae (onto Crumb on Dowland)

Birches was composed as a response to the poem of the same title by the great American poet, Robert Frost. My intent was not to “set” the poem, but rather to explore its inner workings — to re-imagine its  parentheticals, present in Frost’s vicarious vision of a boy, a scene of birches, and the truth of the matter, versus the ‘truth’ as revealed in the confession of an old man looking back.

Birches is dedicated to my father and was composed for violist John Graham. 

Birches for viola and electronics

CAGE (Cornell Avant-Garde Ensemble performing on Harry Bertoia's "sonambient" "tonals", a set of seven sculptures at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art.

http://digital.music.cornell.edu/cage/
http://museum.cornell.edu/exhibitions/harry-bertoia-sound-and-vision.html

CAGE / Bertoia sculptures performance, excerpt 1

Iannis Xenakis: ”…I think that the music that I write is not important for most of the people. It is like an island. …maybe after my death [people] will be more interested in what I have done during my life. But that is not a problem because I cannot do anything else. I am writing music…”

Nisi was composed for hornist Adam Unsworth, motivated by his highly personal approach to the horn. It is dedicated to composer Iannis Xenakis to commemorate his 90th birthday (May 29th, 2012), inspired by Xenakis’s singular spirit, his totally unique sonic palette, and the uncompromisingness of his ideas. Xenakis truly was and is a musical island unto himself. It’s materials are drawn from several of Xenakis’s works, notably Eonta (1963-64), Anaktoria (1969), and N’Shima (1975).

All of the electronic sounds of for Nisi are drawn from horns, in most cases from Unsworth’s own instrument(s)–recorded together at Cornell University in 2011 and 2012–with the exception of several “vocal” sounds derived from the sung text, “in vanum laboraverunt” (“labor in vain”) from Claudio Monteverdi’s Nisi Dominus (from Venetian Vespers, 1610) that appear in the last coda.

Kevin Ernste

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