Points of Light in Shadow
for ‘cello and sound exciters
performed by Stephen Marotto

This piece calls for two sound exciters to be strapped to the cello. These small devices are similar to speakers but only vibrate the surface upon which they rest. A cello makes for a lousy speaker, but the hybrid nature of the sounds can lead to some interesting combinations.

The audio sent through these sound exciters was generated by Orchidea, software designed for computer-assisted orchestration. When fed a target sound and a list of instruments, Orchidea combines samples of those instruments to create an emulation of the target sound. In my case, the target sounds were drawn from bass clarinet and bassoon multiphonic recordings. It’s a bit of a tangled path, but to sumarize: mulltiphonic recording -> Orchidea orchestration -> audio exciter -> cello. Simple!

The title of the piece comes from the novel Stillaset by the Norwegian author Pedr Solis. Many of my pieces have drawn inspiration from Solis’ writings, but this isn’t one of them.

Points of Light was composed for and with Stephen Marotto, and is dedicated to him.

Points Of Light In Shadow

Elsewhere is a Negative Mirror, Part I
For piano with electromagnets

Performed by Chryssie Nanou.

Elsewhere is a Negative Mirror, Part I is the first installment of a longer piece inspired by Italo Calvino’s novel Invisible Cities. In the novel, over the course of discussions between the emperor Kublai Kahn and the explorer Marco Polo, a host of fantastic cities are described. Each of these cities serves both to convey a specific mood and to reflect the evolving views of reality expressed by the two characters. For the composition, I attempted to utilize Calvino’s wide-ranging philosophical explorations as well as the structure of the novel itself. Part I follows the first section of the book, in which four types of cities are introduced and revisited, in a pattern that recycles city types with increasing rapidity. The performer’s material is constrained by these sections.

In addition to the performer playing the piano, a rack of 12 electromagnets is placed over the piano frame, each electromagnet positioned over a string. These are controlled by a Max/MSP patch, each magnet serving to resonate its respective string at variable frequencies. The dampers for the strings being resonated are held up with the sostenuto pedal, thus forcing the performer to move with care around these resonating pitches. The electromagnets are responsible for the performance of a “supertheme”, which falls outside the careful structure mentioned above, while the performer’s material acts a reflection of each section as conveyed by the supertheme.

Elsewhere is a Negative Mirror, Part I was commissioned by ASCAP/SEAMUS and premiered by Chryssie Nanou.

Elsewhere Is A Negative Mirror

Improv sessions with the Ecce Ensemble and Per Bloland, recorded while tracking the album Chamber Industrial at EMPAC.


Roberta Michel: Flute
Vasko Dukovski: Clarinet
Per Bloland: Trumpet
John Aylward: Piano
Jeffrey Means: Percussion
Mike Truesdell: Percussion
Serafim Smigelskiy: Violoncello
Doug Balliett: Double Bass

Chamber Industrial Sessions Pt2 - Shifting Ensembles

Improv sessions with the Ecce Ensemble and Per Bloland, recorded while tracking the album Chamber Industrial at EMPAC.

Roberta Michel: Flute
Vasko Dukovski: Clarinet
Per Bloland: Trumpet
John Aylward: Piano
Jeffrey Means: Percussion
Mike Truesdell: Percussion
Serafim Smigelskiy: Violoncello
Doug Balliett: Double Bass

Chamber Industrial Sessions Pt1 - Ecce Orchestra

For flute, clarinet, piano and double bass
Performed by Ecce Ensemble - Roberta Michel, flute; Vasko Dukovski, clarinet; Wei-Chieh Lin, piano; Doug Balliett, double bass

The title comes from an antiquated term referring to a group of pigs. This struck me as appropriate for several reasons, the most important being the source of inspiration for the piece – the novel Snowball’s Chance, by John Reed. The book, a parody of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, chronicles the return of Snowball the pig, now a staunch laissez-faire capitalist, and the conversion of the farm into a corporate-like entity: the Animal Fair. The single commandment now reads "All animals are born equal–what they become is their own affair." As profits increase, so does general passivity, crime, and pollution – an accelerating downward spiral. While the novel ends with a grim but all too realistic (and animalistic) response to terrible tragedy – those wronged chanting “kill, kill, kill!” – the piece offers a somewhat more optimistic, if enigmatic, conclusion.

A Drift of Swine

For electric guitar, piano, violin, violoncello, percussion and electronics

Commissioned and premiered by Wild Rumpus!

Though atypical in many ways, this piece is in fact an overture for my opera Pedr Solis. For one thing, it will probably never be heard in front of the opera as the instrumentation is quite different. It was also written before the opera, and thus acts as more of a sketch pad than a summation of primary themes. The material types and the melodic fragment toward the end of this piece do play key roles in the larger work however, which had been under development for some time when the overture was composed.

The opera chronicles the fictionalized tale of an actual Norwegian author, Pedr Solis, whose work was best known in Scandinavia during the 60s and 70s. Solis wrote only two novels, the most famous of which is Stillaset, published in 1970. It is perhaps the most extreme example of literary modernism to emerge from Norway, and, as with many of his writings, takes literary modernism itself on as a subtext. A third, still unpublished novel was apparently well underway when Solis disappeared from the public eye. Many speculate that he isolated himself in the far north of Norway, though this was never officially confirmed. The libretto for the opera, by Paul Schick, draws upon this account of Solis’ life, as well as von Hofmannsthal's play The Tower.

The melodic fragment heard toward the end of the overture in the strings is a modified version of a traditional Finnish song reminiscent of a joik, the traditional song form of the Sami people of northern Scandinavia. The song is Kuu kulta kivestä nousit as performed by Me Naiset. Regarding the electronics, though all the instruments are amplified their sound receives no further processing. The piece does include electronic sounds though, all of which are pre-recorded and played back by laptop onstage. 

This piece is dedicated to Wild Rumpus. 

Solis Overture

Thought I'd upload some older pieces here, and this is one of them:
 "Clouds of Oran" is an early piece of mine, composed in 2003 while a masters student at the University of Texas. It is the first of several pieces based on Albert Camus’ novel The Plague. The novel takes place in the city of Oran on the coast of Algeria.  My title is based on an image that occurs early in the text, as the disease is just beginning to take hold and the population beginning to show signs of unrest.  Although "Clouds" is not programmatic per se, the piece as a whole examines the classic text as it related to the social atmosphere in the United States at the time the piece was composed – 2003.  This first part serves to introduce the harmonic and textural language used in the subsequent piece, "The Twilight of Our Minds," though it is also meant to stand on its own as an independent composition.

Performed at the University of Texas by, Ellen C. Johnson, flute; Chris Howard, clarinet; Chris Carrillo, trumpet; Trevor Gureckis, piano; Stephanie Teply, violin; Ben Westney, violoncello; Rob Deemer, conductor

Clouds of Oran

Thought I'd upload some older pieces here, and this is one of them:
This piece was written in at the height of the war in Iraq, during the presidency of George W. Bush. The original program notes are thus out of date, but still relevant: 

It is difficult to define the role of a piece of art that attempts to convey a specific message.  Is it a reflection of the mind of its creator, an attempt to work through issues of personal relevance?  Or is it an attempt to influence the perspectives of those who experience it? The latter runs the risk of deteriorating into propaganda, neither inspiring those who already share the perspective, nor swaying the minds of detractors.  And propaganda can make for intensely mediocre art. In this, as in most things, a balance between the two may prove most effective.  Of course this is a personal exploration of issues so often on our minds these days- the war in Iraq, the behavior of the current administration, and so on. It seems especially important to emphasize right now: if you share these perspectives, you are not alone.  

During the buildup to the war in Iraq, a group of composers at the University of Texas at Austin staged a protest. For this demonstration we stood at a busy intersection and held signs requesting that drivers honk for peace.  It is the resulting honks, as well as several shouts from passers-by, that make up the second half of Wondrous Delight. The first half is largely concerned with the juxtaposition of synthesized sounds and recorded sounds.  Among the recorded sounds are samples of various instruments such as acoustic bass, piano and oboe, as well as recordings of crowds at several larger anti-war protests.  All the sounds used are modified in some way from the original.  The most common, and perhaps the most interesting form of modification can be described as windowing: a particular sound may evolve continuously and gradually, but we are only allowed to hear short windows of this evolution.  Thus a long gradually changing sound is converted into many short, choppy, discontinuous ones.  For example, a sound might last for 30 seconds, begin with a very low pitch, and sweep steadily up to a very high pitch.  We, however, only hear several windows of this progression.

Wondrous Delight won first prize in the ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Commission Competition, grand prize in the Digital Art Awards, Digital Music Category in Tokyo, Japan, and was a finalist in the Pierre Schaeffer International Competition of Computer Music.

The Wondrous Delight of Profound Ineptitute

Another very old piece of mine - composed as an undergrad! Well, what the hell, why not. Definitely not reflective of my current sound, but it would definitely be weird if it STILL was... This was the initial inspiration for the ElectroMagnetically-Prepared Piano though. So I suppose if that thing is important at all, this is kind of a historical document? (at the risk of aggrandizement...) Anyway, here are the original program notes:

Though "Thingvellir" is not strictly speaking an electroacoustic composition, it does involve a rather unusual amplification setup.  The solo trumpet is played into a microphone, which feeds a speaker placed under the soundboard of a grand piano.  The piano itself is amplified, and the damper pedal remains down throughout the piece.  Thus, notes played on the trumpet cause the piano strings corresponding to the fundamental as well as its overtones to ring sympathetically.  This process, used mostly in the first half of the piece, is intended to create a sense of distance and open space.  In the second half of the piece this space collapses into a tense dry rhythmic figure. 

Performed by Chris Carrillo

Thingvellir

Loki chorus, from Pre-Scene 3 of the opera Pedr Solis.
Loki, represented by a chorus, attempts to comment on the action currently unfolding: Pedr’s guilt and indecision about locking his son Ignus away, his writers block, and the growing rebellion. Loki’s commentary is, however, nonsensical. Performed by Guerilla Opera, recorded live at the opera’s initial run.

"A terrorbook full of errata" from the opera Pedr Solis

Los mumullitos, performed by Keith Kirchoff, at the 2019 SPLICE Institute.

Los murmullos is based on a highly influential yet little known (at least in the US) novel from the 1950s: Pedro Páramo, by the Mexican author Juan Rulfo. It is the surreal tale of a man’s return to the town in which his parents lived, long after that town has fallen into decay. Comala is now more heavily populated by the dead than the living, and exists in a blurred twilight realm in which such distinctions are meaningless. The descriptions of the environment are exceptionally vivid, often invoking the four elements to transition between the past and the present, and between the living and the dead. Sound is particularly important to the narrative. The original title of the novel was in fact Los murmullos, a reflection of the murmuring and whispering of the dead heard at various points throughout. Contrary to the gentle implications of the word, it is the intensity of these murmurs that overwhelms and suffocates the protagonist just over half way through the narrative.

My composition, for piano and electronics, shifts between four recurring material types, each inspired by one of the above-mentioned elements as described in the book. The electronics were generated using physical modeling software (Modalys). Keith, for whom the piece was written, had asked for something with a bit of noise – hopefully this does the trick.

The shorter version, Los murmullitos, was created for a specific performance that occurred halfway through the composition process. However it remains available for performance due to the technical difficulty of the full version of the piece. Los murmullitos is certainly challenging to perform, but at least it’s short!

Los murmullitos

Adrian’s Aria, from scene 6 of the opera Pedr Solis
Performed by Aliana de la Guardia and Guerilla Opera

Adrian, Ignis’ protector and mentor, confesses to inciting the rebellion against Ignis’ father, Pedr Solis. Having summoned “mythic forces” to fight for the cause, she promises to hold the wild rebels together, and install Ignus as their leader. Drunk with power (and Aquavit) she now confronts him with his responsibility to lead the rebels. Ignis, however, has no appetite for authority, and further recognizes that Adrian only seeks to wield power through him.

Music by Per Bloland 
Libretto by Paul Schick 
Directed by Laine Rettmer

Performed by: 
Aliana de la Guardia, soprano
Rane Moore, clarinets
Gabriela Diaz, violin
Philipp Stäudlin, saxophones
Mike Williams, percussion

"For this moment formed"

Pedr’s Aria, from Scene 3 of the opera Pedr Solis
Performed by Brian Church and Guerilla Opera

Fifteen years ago Pedr Solis, the Norwegian modernist author, had his son Ignus locked away in a dungeon-like structure after a prophecy that the boy would kill his father. Pedr is haunted by his decision, and is increasingly unable to write. At the time of the action there is a rebellion brewing in Pedr’s (imagnined?) kingdom, and the rebels have adopted Ignus as their leader-in-exile. 

Music by Per Bloland 
Libretto by Paul Schick 
Directed by Laine Rettmer

Performed by: 
Brian Church, baritone
Rane Moore, clarinets
Gabriela Diaz, violin
Philipp Stäudlin, saxophones
Mike Williams, percussion

"Black sky crimson and luminous"

For string quartet, clarinet, percussion and electronics.
Performed by the Callithumpian Consort
(Note: this is an earlier recording than the one included on the Tzadik release.)

Of the various timbral worlds inhabited by Wood Machine Music, the most significant can best be described as noise. Though this term inhabits a wide variety of sonic terrains, my interest is with a fairly limited subset of timbres. For example noise can often imply a pitchless quality, as with white noise. The associated instrumental timbres, such as breathing through an instrument or bowing the body of a violin, I find less useful. What I do find interesting can perhaps best be described as disrupted resonance and distortion. How to achieve such results acoustically has been an ongoing project. And of course I have no qualms about introducing a touch of electronic processing to augment this effect.

The piece is made up of three basic material types, the most significant of which is of course noise. This is expressed in the strings through various types of overpressure, on the clarinet with multiphonics (and, I confess, some blowing through the instrument), and in the percussion as grinding wood against metal. Though each of these techniques results in a certain level of unpredictability, the actions undertaken by the performers are highly prescribed. The second material type involves the contrapuntal use of pitch, and the third percussive effects distributed across the various instruments. Each of these material types has its own developmental trajectory. It is these trajectories, along with the interaction between the material types, which guides the piece through its various distinct and cyclical sections.

Wood Machine Music is dedicated to the Callithumpian Consort.

Wood Machine Music

For alto saxophone and piano with electromagnets
Performed by the Kenners (Eliot Gattegno, saxophone; Eric Wubbels, Electromagnetically-Prepared Piano)
(Note: this is an earlier recording than the one included on the Tzadik release.)

Of Dust and Sand uses the Electromagnetically-Prepared Piano device, a rack of 12 electromagnets which is suspended over the strings of a piano. Each electromagnet is sent an audio signal and in turn excites its respective string, much like a stereo speaker made from piano strings. In this piece a subset of the magnets remains active throughout, the performer physically silencing the strings by pressing down with fingertips. Thus the instrument becomes a kind of anti-piano – lifting a finger frees a string to vibrate, producing sound. In addition, various items, such as paper and a plastic ruler, rest directly on the strings further altering the timbre. Remember – everything you hear is entirely acoustic.

While working on this piece I was deeply immersed in the novel Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann. The title is in part drawn from an image that recurs throughout the novel, that of the hourglass of mortality, which Mann in turn drew from the etchings of Albrecht Dürer. The material of the piece is connected with the novel, though in ways so tenuous as to escape relevance. 

Of Dust and Sand is dedicated to The Kenners.

Of Dust and Sand

For percussion and electronics
Performed by Ryan Packard
(Note: this is an earlier recording than the one included on the Tzadik release.)

The electronics for Solis-EA are organized around a physical model of an 8 stringed instrument capable of producing a huge amount of distortion and internal feedback. This instrument responds to the material played by the percussionist, attempting to track the pitch of these sometimes “unpitched” instruments as best it can. 

The piece is loosely inspired by the novel Stillaset Brandt, by the Norwegian author Pedr Solis. Having created several other pieces that are tightly connected with the principle (unnamed) character in the novel, Solis-EA is more concerned with the author himself, his unusual and dichotomous life, and his mysterious disappearance (or tragic end, depending on which biographer you read).  

This piece is dedicated to Ryan Packard


Solis-EA

Per Bloland is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music whose works have been praised by the New York Times as “lush, caustic,” and “irresistible.” His compositions range from intimate solo pieces to works for large orchestra, and incorporate video, dance, and custom-built electronics. He has received awards and recognition from organizations including IRCAM, ICMA, SEAMUS/ASCAP, the Ohio Arts Council, Digital Art Awards of Tokyo, ISCM, the Martirano Competition, and SCI/ASCAP. His first opera, Pedr Solis, commissioned and premiered by Guerilla Opera in 2015, received rave reviews from the Boston Globe and the Boston Classical Review. He has received commissions from loadbang, Keith Kirchoff, Wild Rumpus, the Ecce Ensemble, Ensemble Pi, the Callithumpian Consort, Stanford’s CCRMA, SEAMUS/ASCAP, the Kenners, Michael Straus and Patti Cudd. His music can be heard on the TauKay (Italy), Capstone, Spektral, and SEAMUS labels, and through the MIT Press. A portrait CD of his work, performed by Ecce Ensemble, was recently released on Tzadik.

Bloland is the co-creator of the Electromagnetically-Prepared Piano, about which he has given numerous lecture/demonstrations and published a paper. He is an Assistant Professor of Composition and Technology at Miami University, Ohio, and in 2013 completed a five-month Musical Research Residency at IRCAM in Paris. He received his D.M.A. in composition from Stanford University and his M.M. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Scores may be purchased at www.babelscores.com/perbloland
For more information visit: www.perbloland.com


Per Bloland

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