Pipe Dreams was written for the organ in St. Peter’s Köln, which has two sets of pipes at opposite ends of the church. Each rank has separate sounds and stops that can combine to create microtonal intervals. Pipe Dreams is a structured improvisation, exploring antiphony and the specific sounds of that organ, extra-musical as well as musical. The tempos and exact notation are left open; the notation is just a musical skeleton for the actual notes played. Ornamentation occurs when the sound warrants it: i.e., to not only obtain musical results, but to make extra-musical sounds occur. The weather affected the sound and action of this organ, changing every day, so realization changed daily. The melodic material is very simplistic, because that is what created the most interesting resultant sounds. Mary Jane Leach-organ

Pipe Dreams

MARY JANE LEACH is a composer/performer whose work reveals a fascination with the physicality of sound, its acoustic properties and how they interact with space. In many of her works Leach creates an other-worldly sound environment using difference, combination, and interference tones; these are tones not actually sounded by the performers, but acoustic phenomena arising from Leach’s deft manipulation of intonation and timbral qualities: “an acoustic Through the Looking Glass world based on sound that the performer is not making.” (The New Yorker).

Pipe Dreams

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