"Somewhere I Have Never Travelled" for String Orchestra

"Attune" (2021) explores possibilities of an unlikely duet as it speaks to complexities within dyadic relations. Comprising of an empty double bass and harp case emitting the voices of their lost instruments, these cases behave as both, imprint and shell, cast and cavity, their multiplicities revealed in an unpredictable tune. Modified as functional speakers, these two cases broadcast an original score by composer Mikhaila Alyssa Smith.

Created as a response to the objects and their specific resonant frequencies, this work is a psychoacoustic exploration of attunement, as as “performance of behaviours that express the quality of feeling of a shared affect state, ” without a sense of imitation, nor the desire to fuse. This is highlighted sonically through the intersections and dissonances of the two voices interpreting an aleatoric score, in two keys set apart by a single semitone. This work aims to create an environment which articulates an experience of proximity and the unfolding of self with other.

Positioned between the cases, the listener is engages with the flux of visible and invisible objects,“focusing on the ephemeral exactly” (Voegelin, 2010, 11-13).

This installation was exhibited as part of CIRCA, Everard Read Cape Town's "Cubicle" Series, 11-30 January 2021.

Attune (2021)

From the album Brother Gone - dedicated to Bheki Mseleku

Brother Gone

Song for Bheki

This piece establishes an ambiguous relationship to the acousmatic voice; a voice that is present, but bodiless. The case, which would typically be stowed away, behaves as its lost instruments surrogate; has its voice returned or has latent sound been sonified upon its opening? The piece was conceived to engage instrument and case in a duet; affecting each other acoustically, in turns.

The title Idée Fixe alludes to a psychoacoustic reading, having meanings in both music and psychology as an idea, thought or motif that recurs. Musically it keys one into the style of the piece, which espouses a Romantic urgency, open to a cadenza like, soloistic interpretation, while too being hybrid through exploration of extended technique and moments of interaction with the case itself. 

Conceptually it reveals a sense of fragmentation or displacement and a longing - a desire to land, or return home. Hovering too is an uncanny sense of the musician’s body.

Experientially the "performance" forms tension with well versed concert etiquette and raises questions around the act of shared listening, with the anxieties and complexities that surface. These considerations are heightened within the context pandemic.
And a question, does one clap for an inanimate performer?

Composition by Mikhaila Smith
Performed by Mariechen Meyer

Idée Fix (for Bowed Electrons Festival & Symposium 2020)

Mikhaila is a composer and pianist based in New York City. Her artistic world involves storytelling, collaborating with other artists and immersing herself in worlds beyond this one through the expressive and powerful medium of music.

"Somewhere I Have Never Travelled" for String Orchestra

Mikhaila Alyssa Smith

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