CAT# (YEAR COMPOSED): #53 (1999)
INSTRUMENTATION: for electronic playback
DURATION (APPROX): 10’59
PUBLICATION: published recording on ELECTRONIC VOICES, Galerie SPHN
PREMIERE PERFORMANCE: 20 November 1999, Southwestern College
NOTE: Wassermann presents extensive morphing of source materials. Most prominent are the extended voice samples that are stretched and distorted often beyond recognition.

Henry Miller in Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch provides a description of transformation that was similar to the spirit of Wassermann “Every creature, every object, every place has its own ambience which is unique. But worlds, objects, creatures, places, all have this in common: they are ever in a state of transmutation. The supreme delight of dream lies in this transformative power. When the personality liquefies, so to speak, as it does so deliciously in a dream, and the very nature of one’s being is alchemized … he who awakens from his dream knows beyond all doubt that the imperishable soul which he calls his own is but a vehicle of this eternal element of change”.

In Wassermann a program designed to achieve a goal efficiently, efficiently evokes a response – in other words, with predictable results.   A bit grumpy because of the southern California pop culture, the water-man enticed a program to become inefficient and messy in order to drown its beauty. Constructively, Wassermann presents a constellation of correspondences between a source and its output.  This galaxy consists of planets which maintain a variety of associations with an original to those which retain no perceptible link.

The voice is of Ute Wassermann.

The work was realized at Southwestern University in San Diego.

#53. Wassermann_excerpt

CAT# (YEAR COMPOSED): #9 (1988)
INSTRUMENTATION: piano trio
PAGES: 32
DURATION (APPROX): 12:49
PUBLICATION: UETZ VERLAG
PREMIERE PERFORMANCE: Claudia Watson, violin; Sarah Weisman, violoncello; Drew Krause, piano; November 1988 ; Urbana, Illinois
AWARD: First prize for the MacDowell Award for composition, 1995
NOTE: An aggression, unaccepted, wills participants in a night of dance that produces change to all. The cello assumes the role of soloist

#09. Unspoken Crime_excerpt

CAT# (YEAR COMPOSED): #41 (1997)
INSTRUMENTATION: for two voices
DURATION (APPROX): 3’33
PUBLICATION: C.P. PRESS PUBLICATIONS
PREMIERE PERFORMANCE: Michael Meadows and Mike Edgerton in Madison, Wisconsin on November 24, 1997
NOTE:
Lingua-Palatal 1 (1997) utilizes a novel model of articulation that uses tongue tip to upper palate constrictions far in excess of traditional phonatory linguistics. It is a teaching piece developed from a new model of articulation that extends the 9-point phonetic model to over fifty points.

#41. Lingua - Palatal 1_1m35-End

CAT# (YEAR COMPOSED): #40 (1997)
INSTRUMENTATION: marine trumpet and voice
DURATION (APPROX): 7’55
PREMIERE PERFORMANCE: Michael Meadows in Madison, Wisconsin on 1997_11_24

#40. 24 October 1667_1m04-3m13

CAT# (YEAR COMPOSED): #37 (1997)
INSTRUMENTATION: for clarinet and horn
PAGES: 18
DURATION (APPROX): 9’02
PUBLICATION: BABELSCORES®
PREMIERE PERFORMANCE: Michelle Doyle-Ronkin and Jeremy Ronkin, February 1998 in Green Lake, Wisconsin
NOTE
A transliteration of the burial text of the Pyramid of Unas, an Egyptian ruler of the 4th century B.C. was the key to opening the door to a hidden and ancient sound world. The significance of the burial text lies in the manifestation of the rite of passage, in which the King, in order to ascend to the heavens had to pass through a series of tests in order to gain his rightful seat at the throne of the immortals.

The performance of this piece is an attempt to follow the ritual of Unas. The musical expression that involves extended techniques is, in essence, a visitation to Egyptian antiquity with the wish to make manifest the magic of the ancients. However, this is not a common grave-robbery, as the rite is not followed verbatim and is neither the will nor intent to propose that symbols of the burial text gain significance through performance.

NOTE 2
The title of the piece comes from the hieroglyphics of the east wall of the entrance chamber of the Pyramid of Unas (a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, and the last ruler of the Fifth dynasty from the Old Kingdom. His reign has been dated as falling between 2375 BC and 2345 BC.)

The interior of this small pyramid at Saqqara (near Cairo in Egypt), originally named “Beautiful are the places of Unas” is decorated with a number of reliefs detailing events during his reign as well as a number of inscriptions.

It is believed that within the inscriptions of the Pyramid Text in Unas’s tomb, there are also some lines of a Semitic dialect, written in Egyptian script and comprising the earliest evidence of written Semitic language.

Unas’s texts contains verses and spells which were intended to help the king in overcoming hostile forces and powers in the Underworld and thus join with the Sun God Ra, his divine father in the afterlife. The king would then spend his days in eternity sailing with Ra across the sky in a solar boat.

These texts I used not only as inspirational but also as generative principles regarding extra-complex sonorities, pitches and form.

NOTE 3
The following text by a Thomas Chr. Heyde for the European premiere in Leipzig:

“… the historical weight of these texts leads Edgerton but not to a musical heaviness. Quite the contrary, … it is a very playful duet of clarinet and horn. Nevertheless, Edgerton is also careful with the musical material. Here one finds again a central tone and tone groups as well as rhythmic patterns that vary through the entire multi-part work.”

#39. A Holy Person Falls into the Nile as a Pelican_6m35-End. Performed by M. Badczong & A. Yamauchi

#39. A Holy Person Falls into the Nile as a Pelican_3m55-5m55. Performers M. Badczong & A. Yamauchi

#39. A Holy Person Falls into the Nile as a Pelican_0-2m05. Performed by M. Badczong & A. Yamauchi

CAT# (YEAR COMPOSED): #43 (1998)
INSTRUMENTATION: from four to forty voices
PAGES:
DURATION (APPROX): 8:21
PUBLICATION: C.P. Press Publications
PREMIERE PERFORMANCE: The Extended Vocal Techniques Performance Group, at the 1998 state conference of the Wisconsin Alliance of Composers at Carthage College, April 4, 1998.
ACCOLADE: Selected as Best Composition at Wisconsin Alliance of Composers Conference, 1998
NOTE: Sirens (1998) is a tour-de-force of a new vocal style. A real crowd pleaser, this piece calls a pub from Joyce’s Sirens the home for Ben Dollard, Stephen Dedaelus, Tom Kernan and Father (Bob) Cowley.

Sirens in 1998 is a rewriting of Joyce, a retelling of Homer and the sounds of the dawn of civilization.
A weeping sigh, a crying sing, a curse of lust and propriety knows no bard from his platform of stone like the blind, penniless beggar.
This landscape between logic, inhabited by annoying creatures are buffoons. Our fears do not look kindly upon them,

Please.

A crime of reason and passion, d’aouuuu mission is de’ mud, d’aouuuu mission to nuture/growt’hh, not combat and defeat (unless the mud stays on de’ feet).

to the Prince of Greens.

Edgerton Portrait

#43. sirens_6m38-7m46

#43. sirens_5m54-6m36

#43. sirens_1m37-2m38

CAT# (YEAR COMPOSED): 58 (2001)
INSTRUMENTATION: for choir and optional children’s chorus
PAGES: 29
DURATION (APPROX): 14’00
PUBLICATION: BABELSCORES®
PREMIERE PERFORMANCE: Partial premiere was given in October 2000 in Rame Küla, Estonia. A second partial premiere was given by the Choir of the HdK (Berlin), Miriam Sohor, conductor at the SchlossPark in Potsdam, Germany in 2001.

NOTE: Kalevi Matus was Semifinalist in the Composition Contest of the Netherlands Radio Choir, 2007

NOTE 2: Dedicated to Marika Blossfeldt, Artistic Director of Polli Talu Arts Center, an International Residential Center in Rame Küla (Estonia), where Kalevi Matus was conceived and composed in September to October 2000.

NOTE 3: Pencil drawing on cover by Kristjan Raud (1865-1943), “Linda kive kandmas” (ca. 1935)

NOTE 4: Kalevi Matus is a series of six short choral movements with optional interludes. The text underlying Kalevi Matus is an episode of the Estonian national epic Kalevipoeg (meaning son of Kalev). In this story, Linda, Kalev’s widow is mourning her huband’s death and is carrying large stones to build a monument on his grave. Influenced by the folk songs of the Settu people from southern Estonia. The work uses some contemporary vocal techniques within an emotional and folk-influenced composition.

NOTE 5: Kalevi Matus is a series of six short choral movements with optional interludes.  The text “Kalevi Matus” is an episode of the Estonian national epic Kalevipoeg (Meaning son of Kalev).  In this story, Linda, Kalev’s widow is mourning her husband’s death and is carrying large stones to build a monument on his grave.  At the time, Linda is pregnant with Kalevipoeg, the heroic figure of the epic.  Weak from her condition, she drops a large stone.  Unable to pick it up, she sits down on the stone and begins to cry.  Her tears form a little puddle, which turn into a pond, and then into a lake.  Today, you can still see Linda’s large stone in the middle of her tear lake (Ülemiste lake) in Tallinn.

#58. Kalevi Matus_Mmt5-P14-End

#58. Kalevi Matus_Mmt3_3m15-3m32

#58. Kalevi Matus_Mmt1_p1-2

Michael Edgerton is an active composer with performances around the world. His compositions have received international prizes and recognition including the important German award, the Kompositionspreis der Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart for his composition the Tempo Mental Rap, a series of six variations for guitar based upon a Steve Vai transcription of a Frank Zappa rap. Michael’s compositions utilize a broad range of musical influences such as European avant-garde, American experimentalism, progressive rock and world music. Since the mid-90s Michael’s compositions have been informed by scientific models and metaphors. Initially stemming from his studies with voice science and dynamical systems, he’s built a body of work that explores the integration of nonlinear concepts applied to sound production and compositional constraints. While the methods and systems he develops are often influenced by science, it is his intuition – his ear that gives birth to the music.

Michael is currently working as Professor of Artistic Research at Lund University/the Malmö Academy of Music in Sweden.

Michael Edward Edgerton, 1985-2000

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