live recording, first performance
5/22/2014, St. Peter's Church-Chelsea, New York

Wet Ink Large Ensemble

Laura Cocks, flute
Karisa Antonio, oboe
Liam Kinson, clarinet
Christa van Alstine, clarinet/bass clarinet
Alex Mincek, tenor saxophone
Sara Schoenbeck, bassoon

Peter Evans, trumpet
Will Lang, trombone
Dan Peck, tuba

Ian Antonio, vibraphone, percussion
Russell Greenberg, percussion
Eric Wubbels, piano
Laura Barger, keyboard

Kate Soper, voice

Joshua Modney, violin
Olivia De Prato, violin
Victor Lowrie, viola
Mariel Roberts, cello
Andrew Roitstein, bass

Carl Bettendorf, conductor

recorded and engineered by Sam Pluta



Auditory Scene Analysis (Part I)

ALEX MINCEK on Tenor Sax, ERIC WUBBELS on Piano, NATHAN NOKES on Electronics. Performed at the Walden Creative Musicians Retreat 2015.

Skinny, Skinny, Don't You Know Me? - I. Cooing Voice and Nice Skin

"Prelude to Making Tellus"
Recording of performance by Andrew R. Munn, bass; Rami Sarieddine, piano; Julian Lambert, contrabass | May 1, 2015.

This piece is a small teaser/prelude to multi-media opera "Making Tellus: An Opera for the Anthropocene".

--------
Text:

Word-tipped arrows and song-made gods,
Let loose in the multitude of voices,
Weaving and rending, words forged in the hearth.

-Andrew R. Munn, 2015 [used with permission of the author].


Genesis 11:6 (King James Bible):

And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; 
and thus they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, 
which they have imagined to do.

Prelude to Making Tellus (2015) for bass voice, piano, and contrabass

from my performance at uncertainty music series in new haven, ct

uncertainty music series 9.12.15

Wet Ink ensemble 
Marina Kifferstein, violin solo
Eric Wubbels, conductor

www.wetink.org

k̶. tracing (2015) Wet Ink, Marina Kifferstein, violin

"Twisted Blue" was written for clarinetist Dan Liptak to perform with the Hartford Independent Chamber Orchestra conducted by Erberk Eryilmaz. The title comes from the bluesy progression that forms the basis of the second movement, which was in fact composed first in a few frantic fall afternoons. The opening movement followed, and then the finale. 

Here, the third movement is played in the clarinet and piano version.

Purchase Sheet Music

Twisted Blue, III (clarinet and piano version)

Hartford Independent Chamber Orchestra; Dan D'Addio (conductor)

enframing lyric

This model is combination of Tacotron2 + WaveRNN
Tacotron2 - 90K iters
https://github.com/mozilla/TTS/772c859
WaveRNN - 550K iters
https://github.com/erogol/WaveRNN/9259e05

Pocket article - WaveRNN and Tacotron2

The internet has fundamentally changed society, it allows us to stay in touch with loved ones and communicate and coordinate with large numbers of people. But it is also used for the decimation of hatred and disinformation. Don’t Feed the Trolls explores the sociological and political challenges of the information age - from its beginnings in the early age of dial-up to the present day, in which information warfare is used to influence elections. The title takes its name from internet slang, urging people to ignore the attention seeking comments from malicious accounts. Modern internet trolling can have multiple manifestations ranging from light-hearted pranks to mob bullying and doxxing, and perhaps the most dangerous, the attempts by organizations and governments to alter society and democracy by sowing disinformation.

The work opens with the spectrum of a dialup modem orchestrated into the ensemble. As the material is stretched it takes on a musical life of its own, invoking the birth of the information age. Eventually the stochastic and nostalgic noises die down and a new theme is introduced. The source material for the second theme is loosely based off of modified fragments of a 1980’s pop song that serves as a light-hearted internet bait and switch. This recontextualisation gradually deviates from its playful nature, becoming increasingly erratic before yielding to the return of the opening material. This final section grows increasingly forceful and mechanical, before ultimately reaching the apex of the work.

Dont Feed The Troll

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLTwhr3hzk0

When composing this work I was fascinated by the mechanical limitations of the disklavier.The piano, while associated with human expression, is a rather strange and unnatural instrument - resulting from amazing feats of engineering with its complex levers, industrial parts, and chemically processed wood. The disklavier highlights this in a way that is at times jarring and uncanny. The human player has physical limitations – hand-size, speed of movement, and number of simultaneous notes. Limitations of speed and notes are shared by the disklavier as well (although the disklavier is still super human in these traits). But the disklavier has some limitations the human does not; pedals and keys are all operated by voltage through solenoid motors. These motors struggle at producing softer dynamics, they often squeak with unwanted noise, they have timing errors from their inability to play soft notes as quickly as loud notes, and the release of the keys and pedals are often jarring. I included the toy piano to augment these, at times, clumsy and mechanical sounds. I installed solenoid motors and a transducer inside the toy piano. Some are meant to strike the metal bars of the toy piano, and some are meant to strike the metal bridge that holds the bars in-place. The title, of motor, bar & wire draws its name from the materials used in this work.

of motor, bar, & wire

Nathan Nokes is a composer, musician, and sound artist whose works contrast heavily calculated precompositional processes with intuitive, freeform lyricism. Much of his work is written for chamber and live electronics. His work often explores the topic of nature and human interconnectedness in the information age. Works of his have been performed by members of ensembles such as Wet Ink, Loadbang, Mise-en, Ulysses European Ensemble, and Invoke Quartet. His music and sound installations have been featured in concert series such as Fusebox Festival (TX), New Voices Festival at COA (Washington DC), Foot in the Door (CT), Cohen New Works Festival (TX), and Festival of Contemporary Art Music (WA). 

His fellowships, scholarships, and residencies include the Kent Kennan Graduate Fellowship (TX), Hartt Talent Scholarship (CT), Nief-Norf Technology Fellowship (TN), I-Park (CT), and The Walden School (NH). 

He is a currently a graduate fellow, composition D.M.A student and associate instructor at the University of Texas in Austin. He received his M.M. in composition from Hartt School of music at the University of Hartford, and B.M. in Composition from Washington State University. 


His fellowships, scholarships, and residencies include the Kent Kennan Graduate Fellowship (TX), Hartt Talent Scholarship (CT), Nief-Norf Technology Fellowship (TN), I-Park (CT), and The Walden School (NH). 

He is a currently a graduate fellow, composition D.M.A student and associate instructor at the University of Texas in Austin. He received his M.M. in composition from Hartt School of music at the University of Hartford, and B.M. in Composition from Washington State University.

of motor, bar, & wire

Nathan Nokes

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