this is really compelling! I personally feel this section could last for a much longer time. Beautiful!

YEEESSS that multiphonic tho ugh. What did you use to compose the electronics?

Magnificently intense electronic sounds form the perfect counterpoint to the wonderful oboe sounds

Timestretched to the length of the longest recording. Now available for download / vinyl: https://heyexit.bandcamp.com/album/every-recording-of-gymnopedie-1

buy the vinyl

Every Recording of Gymnopedie 1

Studio recording of my piece for bass oboe and fixed media, 'Ground Zero II.

Bass Oboe - Nicola Hands


Programme Notes:

'Ground Zero II' is the second piece I've written reflecting on the Syrian civil war; two years after 'Ground Zero' the picture had changed significantly, with the emergence of ISIS and the refugee crisis as prominent global topics.

Unlike 'Ground Zero', the electronic element in this piece is not live but a fixed tape part. The piece is constructed using harmony and melodic writing derived from the spectral analysis of a bass oboe multiphonic. Pitch classes used are almost entirely from the spectrum, with all microtonal pitches appearing in the tape part only as we simply hadn't worked out enough microtone fingerings to use them freely in the bass oboe! The opening melody consists of an ascending minor third (E to G) and a descending major third (G to Eb), of course leaving a semitone (Eb back to E) to complete the interval vector of this motif. The motif is developed by expanding it outwards to gradually include the rest of the pitch classes derived from the multiphonic's spectrum, using similar shapes and restricting horizontal intervals entirely to the three mentioned.

The piece plays with perspectives of scale; the opening sections focus entirely on development using the mode derived from the multiphonic's spectrum; the middle section features a multiphonic chorale, 'zooming out' of the one multiphonic and including pitch classes from outside its spectrum, though the horizontal intervallic consistency, itself still derived from the prominent pitch classes of the original multiphonic's spectrum, is maintained. The perspectives are linked by playing a melody derived from the opening motif above these same multiphonics sounding in the tape part. There is also a small element of further 'zooming in' on the three original pitches of the motif and melody, focusing on their spectra, whose prominent pitch classes also occur in the generative multiphonic spectrum.

This piece required research to be carried out, which I did with the help of oboist Michael Sluman. Together, we recorded a whole range of the bass oboe's sounds, all of which I then spectrally analysed in what I believe is the first such research to be carried out on the bass oboe. The collected data is available here: https://omarperacha.com/bass-oboe-spectral-data

'Ground Zero II' (2016) - Bass Oboe & Electronics

for solo violin, pre-recorded spoken voice, and live electronics

Premiere: 8 June 2018; Gallery 1412, Seattle, WA

Luke Fitzpatrick, violin
Ibidunni Ojikutu, spoken voice 

DARN. exhibits a counterpoint of evolving structures. Perhaps the most prominent of these structures is the spoken part that contains a number of reactions to Kendrick Lamar’s 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Music achievement, collected from various online sources. The reactions are integrated into the piece in a particular order, ranging from seemingly naïve questions about what qualifies Lamar’s album DAMN. for the award, to bursts of blatant racism.

The piece is also a study on Roland TR-808, a classic drum machine that has shaped the soundscapes of numerous hip-hop beats. The electronic layer of the piece heavily relies on a digital emulation of the bass drum circuit of TR-808.

DARN.

Performed in EARTH#SKY#SPACE festival in 22/06/18, Hannover.
Conducted by Andreas Felber. Vocalensemble der HMTMH.

Fall, leaves, fall
by Emily Bronte

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

Fall Leaves Fall, for SSAA solo voices (2018)

Farewell, my sweet 9th floor...

"A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order." - Jean-Luc Goddard

New track from the album I am currently working on, enjoy!

Feast // Famine

Recorded December 2004 for Solo CD "Blaauw"

Isabel Mundry, Solo Auf Schwellen for double bell trumpet

Gleitend -Jieun Noh - LIVE recording (2017)

Claroscuro (2019) 

Performed by JACK Quartet

Recording and Mix by Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie

Claroscuro (String Quartet)

Laura Barger and Alexandra LaMastra, piano
Anthony DeMartinis and Russell Greenberg, percussion
Reilly Spitzfaden, no-input mixer

Premiered at the Yarn/Wire Institute in the Staller Center Recital Hall at Stony Brook University on July 1, 2019

Notes on the instruments:

Percussion 1 plays a speaker hooked directly to a 9v battery. Touching a pair of contacts to various irregular pieces of metal or parts of the piano completes the circuit and makes crackling noises. 

Percussion 2 plays a megaphone by scraping various materials on the microphone and making feedback. 

The no-input mixer feeds back the outputs of a mixer to the inputs. Turning on various combinations of channels and adjusting the gain, EQ, pan, etc shapes the feedback.

'Ground Zero II' (2016) - Bass Oboe & Electronics

Omar Peracha

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