Fall, Leaves, Fall, for amplified saxophone and electronics, is an aphoristic composition that explores the seasons shifting from autumn to winter, decay, and poetry by Emily Brontë. The work was composed at the Hambidge Center.

Fall, Leaves, Fall
by Emily Brontë
Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night's decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

Performance by Wilson Poffenberger.

Fall Leaves Fall

La Ballata, for flute, saxophone, trombone, percussion, violin, and cello, explores the sounds and rhythms present inside excerpts from the poem “La ballata della vucchiara ovvero tutto il miele è finito!” by Raffaele Giura Longo. Composers selected for the project were instructed to use the text in some way. The work was premiered in 2021 in Matera, Italy. The work is highly theatrical, and performers are directed to speak in addition to playing their instruments. The occasional prop is used. The work features an array of percussive sounds and phonetic textures. Many of the instrumental materials were derived through spectral analyses of the spoken text. These elements are juxtaposed with whole-tone sweeping gestures and modal/tonal melodic materials. 

**Text Extracts**
“la ballata della vucchiara ovvero tutto il miele è finito!” 
by Raffaele Giura Longo

Concavo è il favo
ma è spesso convesso.	
E se il miele è dentro
io c’entro, io c’entro!
T’inguacchi le mani
ma dentro rimani.	
Se spingi la faccia	
nessuno ti scaccia	
com’un cane vecchio.
	
Io prendo un bel secchio:
prima lo lavo,	
concàvo, concàvo;
e quando s’è asciutto
ci metto un prosciutto
un po’ unto, un po’ spesso,
convesso, convesso.
	
Tutti quei massi
mi sembrano i Sassi
mi sembrano messi
per esser concessi:
non sono caverne,
è facile averne
e quelle grotte
son tutte rotte.

I Sassi son fatti
per essere sfatti.
Ma gli occhi con essi
si fanno convessi,
si fanno commossi,
si fanno un po’ rossi.
La macchia brucia,
la Murgia scalcia,
sul Parco sventola
bandiera bianca.

Ed alla fine chi vincerà
per tutto il bene dell’umanità?
Chiara
Vucchiara,
mi sembri ormai spoglia
e ancora ne ho voglia!
“Non c’era più cera,
non più miele c’era!”
La bocca concava
ha solo la bava,
la voce è fessa
e solo convessa.

La lingua scava
fin nella lava
e poi confessa
di andare a messa.

Ma san Pietro Barisano
ci è sfuggito dalla mano
e San Pietro Caveoso
è piuttosto rumoroso;
la Madonna della Bruna
qui si assonna fino all’una;
San Giovanni lava i panni
e li asciuga con l’acciuga.
	
...
Concavità Concavità!
Dove è mai la felicità?
E tu dolce mio convesso,
dove mai ti hanno messo?
(chi vuol far la rima adesso?)
Vuoi vedere che alla fine
non si trovan più le rime?
Son finite tutte quante	
con Madonne, santi e sante.
Ed allora andiamo via
buona notte e così sia!


**Translation**

Concave is the honeycomb
but it's often convex.
And if the honey is inside
I go in! I go in!
You're gonna get your hands dirty
but inside you stay.
If you push the face
nobody's chasing you away
like an old dog.

I take a bucket:
I wash it first,
concave, concave;
and when it's dry
I put ham in it.
a little greasy, a little thick,
convex, convex.

All those boulders
they look like the Sassi.
they seem to be put
to be granted :
they're not caves,
it's easy to get those
and those caves
are all broken.

The Sassi are made
to be unmade.
But the eyes with them
become convex,
they get moved,
they get a little red.
The shrubland burns,
the Murgia kicks,
on the Park it is waving
a white flag.

And finally who will win
for mankind’s wellness?
Clear
Vucchiara,
Now you look so empty,
but I still want it!
"There was no more wax,
there was no more honey!"
The concave mouth
all it's got is slime,
the voice is silly
and just convex.

The tongue burrows
into the lava
and then it confesses
to go to mass.

But Saint Peter Barisano
slipped out of our hands.
and San Pietro Caveoso
is rather loud;
the Madonna della Bruna
sleeps here until one o'clock;
St. John washes clothes
and dries them with anchovies.

Concavity Concavity!
Where is happiness?
And you, my sweet convex,
where did they put you?
(Who wants to rhyme now?)
Can you see that in the end
you can't find rhymes anymore?
They're all finished
with Madonnas and saints.
And so, let's go away
good night and so be it!

La Ballata

Sounding Landscapes—Bee Conservancy is a collaborative installation by mother and daughter Chris and Leah Reid. The installation brings together visual and sonic artforms, combining a painted landscape with an immersive soundscape composition. The work highlights pollinator gardens and the important creatures that live among us.
 
The visual portion of the work was painted by Chris Reid and consists of a large, life-size 3-panel plein air landscape of Chris’ gardens. The work is filled with an explosion of vibrant floral colors and textures. 
 
The sound portion of the work, composed by Leah Reid, comprises a 20-minute composition that encapsulates sounds of Jaffrey center—the historic meeting house’s bell ringing in the distance, the sound of bees, hornets, and insects humming and buzzing, geese flying south, birds, and trees swaying in the wind.
 
In the piece, these sounds are combined with Chris speaking about her inspirations, garden, and the sounds and rhythms of her painting en plein air. The listener hears Chris’ unique stroke work and the process of completing the piece from underpainting to final touches.
 
The work is about taking a step back and observing the beauty of nature. The installation brings together both Chris and Leah’s love of gardening, New Hampshire, and their awe of the bees that visit the garden year after year. The work enables others to experience the beauty of this scene and be immersed in the sounds that surround it through two artists’ eyes. 

It's not simply art with music—the work explores sight, sound, and environment—taking the senses to a level that reveals the bees, the wind, and all the ambient sounds adding to the visual expression of movement, texture, and emotional expression that takes place in painting.

For information about the artists, please visit www.chrisreidstudio.com and www.leahreid.com.

Sounding Landscapes--Bee Conservancy

Jouer is an immersive composition for amplified soprano saxophone and electronics that explores sounds associated with “play”—sports, balls bouncing or being hit, playground and amusement park sounds, sounds of various children’s toys, balloons, video games, swimming pool games, trampolines, casinos, racetrack sounds, and much more. The electronics lead the listener through various soundscapes associated with the theme, while the saxophone part interacts with the evolving timbres and unifies the various sound worlds. 

Reid composed the piece at Yaddo and MacDowell as part of her Guggenheim Fellowship. The piece was composed for Kyle Hutchins and the Cube at Virginia Tech.

Performance by Kyle Hutchins.

Jouer

Ring, Resonate, Resound is an acousmatic composition written in homage to John Chowning. The piece tips its hat to Chowning’s Stria, Turenas, and the beautiful sonic landscape Chowning explored through his research and discovery of FM synthesis. Ring, Resonate, Resound is dedicated to him.

The composition explores timbre through dozens of bell sounds, which provide the harmonic and timbral material, structure, foreground, and background for the piece. The composition is comprised of five sections, each examining a different set of bells and materials that interact with them. The piece begins thin and bright, then gradually increases in spectral and textural density until the listener is enveloped by a thick sound mass of ringing bells. The bells gently fade into waves of rich harmonic resonances. 

The piece was composed using a multidimensional timbre model Reid developed while at Stanford University. The model is based on perceptual timbre studies and has been used by the composer to explore the compositional applications of “timbre spaces” and the relationship between reverberant space and timbre, or rather the concept of “timbre in space.” 

Ring, Resonate, Resound was premiered at Stanford University’s Triple CCRMAlite: 40, 50, 80 celebration in October of 2014.


Ring, Resonate, Resound

Through a series of fifteen fragments, Ostiatim explores the sounds produced by doors and the emotional inflections of the people who interact with them. Examples of sounds include: doorchimes, westminster doorchimes, knocking, doors banging, slamming, and doors creaking. 

​The title, meaning “door-to-door,” is meant to depict the timeline of the piece. Each fragment should be treated like a fleeting memory--sometimes connections are made, and other times the moment slips away.

The composition was inspired by artist Anish Kapoor’s sculpture: Memory and explores the concept of timbre space and timbre as a morphing device for exploring new material. 

Ostiatim

Occupied spaces is a piece that explores timbre through a series of 11 ‘rooms’ or spaces. Some of these spaces have been modeled after physically existing rooms, others are either imagined (and do not follow the rules of physics), or occur inside your head. There are three impulses in the piece: a zipper, a clap and a balloon pop that are inserted into these rooms. These three sounds have been filtered to various degrees and, over the course of the piece, frequencies are added to the impulses, creating an increasingly noisy texture.

The piece has six sections and an introduction. The sections determine not only which rooms are presented, but also the degree of the pitch-to-noise ratio present at any given time. In each section, impulses have been organized into various strands of material. Each strand comes from a two part theme that is presented in the first section. Each section takes this theme and destructively varies it. The piece begins with an introduction of the zipper that hints at some of the characteristics of the rooms, followed by section 1 that presents rooms 1-4 and the basic two strands of thematic material. Section 2 introduces rooms 5 and 6 and the strands begin to grow and overlap. Section 3 presents rooms 7 and 10 and the possibility of 3 simultaneous strands and 2 overlapping rooms. Section 4 introduces room 8, and strands begin to multiply and deteriorate the rooms. The zipper attempts to intervene, but is repetitively stopped by room 8. Section 5 begins after a final failed attempt of the zipper to break free, followed by the first iteration of room 9. The material tentatively resets; however, the rooms have deteriorated and reflections begin to multiply. The strands multiply and grow and the reflections densify until they have completely saturated all of the rooms. A final iteration of the clap, balloon and zipper form the climax of the piece. Section 6 is marked by the second iteration of room 9, which takes the final climactic impulse and leads the listener into the final new room: # 11 - a resonant soup and ghost of the previously heard impulses. This final room reminisces with a small band-width of frequencies from the previously heard impulses. The piece closes with a brief recapitulation and final presentation of fragments of the original theme and a brief presentation of select rooms. 

Occupied Spaces

Single Fish is an aphoristic composition for three sopranos and hand percussion. The work explores the sounds and rhythms present inside Gertrude Stein’s poem “Single Fish” from Tender Buttons. The piece is divided into four sections, each examining a subset of the text. The singers are directed to explore a vast repertoire of theatrical characters and singing styles. The composition begins with delicate whispered and spoken phonetic textures and slowly incorporates pitched material: ranging from honky-tonk piano imitations to lush melodic lines. 

The piece was composed using a multidimensional timbre model Reid developed while at Stanford University. The model is based on perceptual timbre studies and has been used by the composer to explore the compositional applications of “timbre spaces” and the relationship between reverberant space and timbre, or rather the concept of “timbre in space.” 

Text for Single Fish:
Tender Buttons 
[Single Fish]
By Gertrude Stein

Single fish single fish single fish egg-plant single fish sight.
A sweet win and not less noisy than saddle and more ploughing and nearly well painted by little things so.
Please shade it a play. It is necessary and beside the large sort is puff.
Every way oakly, please prune it near. It is so found.
It is not the same.

Single Fish

Pear is a piece composed for two violins (or a pair) that illustrates both the similarities and differences between instruments and performers. Through six movements the piece explores an expanded range of the instrument, as well as a variety of extended techniques and dynamics. As a metaphor, the violin combines the melodic and textural passages to depict the connection between instruments and the individuality of the people who play them.

Pear Movement 5

Pear Movements 3 & 4

Pear Movement 1

Apple, for four sopranos, explores the sounds and rhythms present inside Gertrude Stein’s poem “Apple” from Tender Buttons. The work is comprised of eight sections, each examining the poem, or a subset of the text from a different angle. The first section explores the phoneme /aep/ (the first part of the word apple) and a “normal” singing style; the second, explores percussive whispered and spoken consonants from “apple” through “shake;” the third, explores spoken and Sprechstimme vowels from the beginning through “please;” the fourth explores half-sung syllables from the beginning through “no no gold;” the fifth section explores spoken/Sprechstimme/and sung words and word-clusters through “change sweet is;” the sixth section is the most melodious, and explores “bready” through “please,” the seventh section explores the entire poem moving from whispered through half-sung textures, examining text from “apple” until “ham;” and the eighth section, focuses on the final phrase: “this is use.” The work is highly theatrical and the performers are directed to explore a vast repertoire of dramatic characters and singing styles. 

​The piece was composed using a multidimensional timbre model Reid developed while at Stanford University. The model is based on perceptual timbre studies and has been used by the composer to explore the compositional applications of “timbre spaces” and the relationship between reverberant space and timbre, or rather the concept of “timbre in space.” Apple explores the timbral possibilities of the voice.
​
This work was commissioned by Accordant Commons and was written during a residency at the MacDowell Colony.

Tender Buttons 
[Apple]

By Gertrude Stein

Apple plum, carpet steak, seed clam, colored wine, calm seen, cold cream, best shake, potato, potato and no no gold work with pet, a green seen is called bake and change sweet is bready, a little piece a little piece please. 

A little piece please. Cane again to the presupposed and ready eucalyptus tree, count out sherry and ripe plates and little corners of a kind of ham. This is use.

Apple

Forged is a one movement piece written for the Sound Gear Ensemble. The title refers to the process of blacksmithing and acts as a metaphor for several processes which occur throughout the composition. The piece is chromatic in nature and was composed using a series of connected block structures that are interwoven, obscured and then decomposed. The five traditional Japanese elements of Chi (Earth), Ka (Fire), Fū, (Wind), Sui (Water), and Kū (Void) are essential to the art of blacksmithing, and each provide unique contributions to the construction, texture, and color of Forged. For example, the concept of void is represented through the insertion of silence throughout the piece, and water is depicted through a “ripple effect” patterning of material. Forged continues Reid’s exploration of musical textures, extended techniques, and instrumental timbres.

Forged

Blink, for accordion, clarinet, and electric guitar, is a short piece that explores “musical images,” tiny moments and events, the concept of focus, suddenness, and re-calibration.

Blink

Crumbs, for amplified percussion and electronics, is an aphoristic composition that explores delicate grains, sounds, and textures. The work was designed to be portable. The instruments and found objects used in the live-percussion part can easily fit inside a small box. 

The work comprises six short sections, each examining a unique set of small handheld percussion instruments and common household items. The work is centered around a 5:1 ratio, which controls the piece’s proportions and the distribution of the number of attacks per section. Each of the first five sections are composed of two gestures: 1 decelerating and 1 accelerating. Their weighted proportions gradually shift from a 5:1 to a 1:5 ratio. The 6th section is divided into 5 additional parts that mirror the largescale proportions in the piece. The work begins with small, bright, effervescent grains, and gradually incorporates larger, deeper, and more resonant textures.

Performance by I-Jen Fang.

Crumbs

Sk(etch) is an acousmatic work that explores sounds, gestures, textures, and timbres associated with the creative process of sketching, drawing, writing, and composing. 
The work was composed with two projects in mind: working with EMPAC’s wave field synthesis array and for Núcleo Música Nova’s «microFOLIA» project.

The work won First Prize in the Tesselat Electronic Music Competition and an Honorary Mention in the WOCMAT NCTU International Phil Winsor Computer Music Competition.

Sk(etch) is featured on RMN Classical's Electroacoustic & Beyond vol. 4, MUSLAB’s Planeta Complejo, SEAMUS’ CD vol. 29, and Núcleo Música Nova’s microFOLIA CDs.

The work was featured in NPR’s morning edition https://www.npr.org/2022/01/04/1060773409/composer-creates-a-musical-piece-with-the-sounds-of-drawing-and-writing

Sk(etch)

Reverie is an acousmatic composition that leads the listener through an immersive fantasy centered around deconstructed music boxes. The work comprises eight sections that alternate between explorations of the music boxes’ gears and chimes. In the work, the music boxes’ sounds are pulled apart, exaggerated, expanded, and combined with other sounds whose timbres and textures are reminiscent of the original. As the piece unfolds, the timbres increase in spectral and textural density, and the associations become more and more fantastical. Gears are transformed into zippers, coins, chainsaws, motorcycles, and fireworks, and the chimes morph into rainstorms, all sizes of bells, pianos, and more. 

Reid composed the work during residencies at the Ucross Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. 

Reverie won First Prizes in the 6th International “New Vision” Composition Competition “Galaxies” in memory of Nicolaus Copernicus, the 8th KLANG! International Electroacoustic Composition Competition, and Musicworks' Electronic Music Composition Contest; Sound of the Year's “Composed with Sound Award”; and Second Prizes in both the Xenakis International Electronic Music Competition and the XIII° International Destellos Competition.

Reverie

Dr. Leah Reid (b. 1985) is a composer, sound artist, researcher, and educator, whose works range from opera, chamber, and vocal music, to acousmatic, electroacoustic works, and interactive sound installations. Her primary research interests involve the perception, modeling, and compositional applications of timbre. In her works, timbre acts as a catalyst for exploring new soundscapes, time, space, perception, and color. In recent reviews, Reid’s works have been described as “immersive”, “haunting”, and “shimmering”.
 
Winner of a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship, Reid has also won the American Prize in Composition (Vocal Chamber Music Division), first prizes in the “Galaxies” 6th International “New Vision” Composition Competition in memory of Nicolaus Copernicus, Musicworks’ Electronic Music Composition Contest, the 8th KLANG! International Electroacoustic Composition Competition, the Gaetano Amadeo Prize, the Tesselat Electronic Music Competition, and the Franz Schubert Conservatory International Composer Competition, Sound of the Year’s Composed with Sound Award, the Film Score Award in Frame Dance Productions’ Music Composition Competition, the International Alliance for Women in Music’s (IAWM) Pauline Oliveros Award, and second prizes in the Iannis Xenakis International Electronic Music Competition and the 13th International Destellos Competition. She has received fellowships from the Guerilla Opera Company, Transient Canvas, Copland House, the Hambidge Center, MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), the Ucross Foundation, and Yaddo. 

Reid has worked with and received commissions from ensembles such as Accordant Commons, Blow Up Percussion, Concavo & Convesso, Ensemble Móbile, Guerilla Opera, the Jack Quartet, McGill’s Contemporary Music Ensemble, Neave Trio, Sound Gear, Talea, and Yarn/Wire. Her compositions have been presented at festivals, conferences, and in major venues throughout the world, including Aveiro_Síntese (Portugal), BEAST FEaST (England), Espacios Sonoros(Argentina), EviMus (Germany), Forgotten Spaces: EuroMicrofest (Germany), the International Computer Music Conference (USA & Chile), IRCAM’s ManiFeste (France), LA Philharmonic's Noon to Midnight (USA), the Matera Intermedia Festival (Italy), the New York City Electronic Music Festival (USA), the OUA Electroacoustic Music Festival (Japan), the San Francisco Tape Music Festival (USA), Série de Música de Câmara (Brazil), the Society of Composers National Conference (USA), Soochow New Voice Concert Series (China), the Sound and Music Computing Conference (Germany), the Tilde New Music Festival (Australia), the Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium (Canada), and the Workshop on Computer Music and Audio Technology (Taiwan), among many others. Her works are published with Ablaze Records, Cero Records, New Focus Recordings, Parma Recordings, RMN Classical, and BabelScores.

She is a Vice President of the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM), Vice President for Programs and Projects for the Society of Electroacoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS), and the Artistic Director of the Boston New Music Initiative (BNMI). 

Reid received her D.M.A. and M.A. in music composition from Stanford University and her B.Mus from McGill University. Reid’s principal teachers include Mark Applebaum, Jonathan Berger, Brian Ferneyhough, Sean Ferguson, Ana Sokolovic, and Brian Paul Harman. Reid has taught at Stanford University (Stanford, CA), University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA), and at the University of Silicon Valley (San Jose, CA). She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA), where she teaches courses in music composition and technology. Additional information may be found at www.leahreid.com.

Leah Reid

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