premiered 2/12/2021, Appalachian State University (N. Cline)

allay

for William Ferris Chorale
SSAATTBB

Our breaths come in restless tides was written for the William Ferris Chorale and its conductor, Chris Windle as part of their concert series, Breath. The text is after the writings of Kahlil Gibran, Charles Olson, and Wendell Berry.

https://www.williamferrischorale.org/

our breaths come in restless tides

The dowser offers a system of decision-making in which there is no demonstrable connection between the process of seeking and the anticipated outcome. A twitching rod, a swinging pendulum indicates, “dig here.” Often those who turn to this ancient practice of magical divination do so not out of a belief that it will work, but that it must. A dry well is a crisis. “Water witching,” as it is known in rural America, is a way of coping with one’s “environment under conditions of uncertainty and anxiety.” The water witch – like the hydrogeologist – is concerned with imagining underground flows of water. 

The basic materials of water-witching are saxophone multiphonics: fleeting acoustic phenomena that require subtle control of embouchure, fingering, and air-pressure. They are unstable and unpredictable sonorities that float between harmony and timbre. water-witching wanders through this acoustic terrain. Frictions emerge from this “in-between-ness.” Stillness is filled with tension through the hint of something just below the surface. water-witching is dedicated to my mother and the memory of my grandfather.

water-witching (excerpt)

In analog playback devices (turntables, tape machines) irregularities in the speed of revolution results in a slow forms of pitch variation known as "wow and flutter" - the sound of a warped record or worn out cassette tape. In digital systems, these deviations are called "jitter and wander".

http://spektralquartet.com/

jitter.wander.flutter.wow (live 2017)

Jeff Siegfried (tenor sax) with Vincent Povázsay (conductor) and the Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble

The dowser offers a system of decision-making in which there is no demonstrable connection between the process of seeking and the anticipated outcome. A twitching rod, a swinging pendulum indicates, “dig here.” Often those who turn to this ancient practice of magical divination do so not out of a belief that it will work, but that it must. A dry well is a crisis. “Water witching,” as it is known in rural America, is a way of coping with one’s “environment under conditions of uncertainty and anxiety.”

The water witch – like the hydrogeologist – is concerned with imagining underground flows of water.

The basic materials of water-witching are saxophone multiphonics: fleeting acoustic phenomena that require subtle control of embouchure, fingering, and air-pressure. They are unstable and unpredictable sonorities that float between harmony and timbre. water-witching wanders through this acoustic terrain. Frictions emerge from this “in-between-ness.” Stillness is filled with tension through the hint of something just below the surface.

water-witching was written for and in close collaboration with Jeff Siegfried and is dedicated to my mother and the memory of her father.

water-witching (live 2016)ensemble version

The Crossing - Donald Nally, conductor - http://www.crossingchoir.com/

She took Saulito's hands and said to him very calmly, 'They can't hurt us. God is protecting us. You just have to have faith and I will be fine and with you soon.'
     --Emma Lozano, quoted in Washington Post article, August 21, 2007, on the arrest of Chicago activist Elvira Arellano


The Crossing @ Christmas 2017
The Jeffrey Dinsmore Memorial Concert
Sunday, December 17, 2017 @ 5PM
The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, PA

she took his hands

Watersheds (2018)
prelude: water-witching (tenor sax and electronics)
I. water borders (13:23)
II. the lace-like fabric of streams (17:08)
III. a method for finding (19:36)
IV. to encourage the habits of industry (21:03)
V. threads of the community fabric (24:02)
VI. rain follows the plow (26:35)
VII. the gentle rain which waters (27:06)

Premiered on November 5, 2018
Galvin Hall, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

Bienen Contemporary/Early Vocal Ensemble
Donald Nally, conductor
Joe Connor, saxophone

Watersheds (live 2018)

For Stare at the Sun

The texts in A Strategy for Confrontation are drawn from responses to the violent confrontation that occurred between demonstrators and police in the parks and streets of Chicago during the week of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. In the aftermath, attempts to cast blame were carried out in the form of published reports, press conferences, and television documentaries. The City of Chicago responded with “The Strategy of Confrontation,” a report released just days after the riots that attributed the cause of the violence to a small group of radical anti-Vietnam war protesters. The report also included lengthy list of injuries sustained by police officers as well injuries reported by local hospitals. “The Walker Report” - submitted to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence - reviewed thousands of statements from eyewitnesses ultimately attaching the label “police riot” to the violence. Despite the extensive media coverage and best efforts to control the narrative via official reports, in the words of the great Chicago columnist Mike Royko, “the propaganda served only to solidify opinion, not to change minds.” The work closes with questions posed by Carl Sandburg in his poem “On the Way:” Let us ask ourselves: What is truth? What do you or I know [...] about where we are going?

Stare at the Sun, Chicago, IL 01/12-13/2019
https://www.stareatthesun.org/

A Strategy for Confrontation

"knar" - a protruding knot covered in bark on the trunk or root of a tree from a failed branch.

For F-Plus
https://www.fplusmusic.com/

knar

the air is full was written for Constellation Men's Ensemble's annual new music series, NOVA III: the sounds of silence. The work is inspired and influenced by Wendell Berry's poem, “The Silence.” Responding to the concert’s theme, I was drawn to Berry’s meditation on the relationship between silence and speech. However, I felt that setting the text directly would betray the spirit of his words. Nevertheless, his poem permeates much of the music, both structurally and metaphorically. The five movements search for connections between sounds from nature and sounds of the human voice – a continuum of noises and resonances brought to life with breath. I am deeply grateful to Constellation Men’s Ensemble for their dedication and artistry in bringing this work into being.

Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.
--Wendell Berry

Constellation Men's Ensemble
Guarneri Hall, Chicago, IL, 02/8-9/2019

https://www.constellationensemble.org/
https://guarnerihall.org/

the air is full (last movement)

Originally for 8-channel playback, here is a binaural mix - it's pretty quiet.

I started grainstream by recording the sound of seeds and grains pouring into mixing bowls.  The many discrete attacks of individual grains and the resonance from the vessels fuse into granular textures.  From the simple gesture of pouring, I sculpted these sounds into evolving streams and scattered them across the multichannel sound-field.  The first streams appear very close (hyper-real) and begin to accumulate in density.  Gradually, processed (unreal) streams emerge with more aggressive characters and overtake the 'natural' sounds.  Suddenly, a hail storm (real) interrupts with percussive, rhythmic character that is  then washed over by swirling, ritualistic bells.  grainstream is a meditation on the centuries old practice of seed-saving and the threats imposed by patenting seed DNA.  My aim is to create a music that embraces the need for balancing variety and repetition in rich, sustainable systems (both musical and agricultural).


Nicholas Cline

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