Vortex, boxcar, scored for flute and electronically-processed recordings, juxtaposes the acoustical properties of two contrasting spaces:

1) Richard Serra’s massive, sixty-eight foot COR-TEN steel sculpture “Vortex” which stands in front of the entrance to the Forth Worth Museum of Modern Art. It is a sanctuary, doubling as a playful zone freely accessible to an enthusiastic public, commissioned from one of the world’s most celebrated contemporary artists.

2) An abandoned railroad freight car that sits in a roadside field in Wartrace, Tennessee — a discarded container crafted by unknown workers. Suspicious debris found inside the boxcar indicates that it is now a site of escapism for youth. 

Impulse responses of both ‘spaces’ were recorded by the composer and analyzed for frequency content. Pitches played by the flute in certain sections of the work correspond to resonant frequencies of either the Serra sculpture or the boxcar. Electronic resonances are based on the actual spaces. Recorded sounds from other locales are also processed through the resonance of these spaces. For example, the sound of breathing renders the vortex as a steel lung — an organ that, in some ways, the sculpture actually resembles.


“Vortex, boxcar,” for example, a composition of mine scored for flute and electronically-processed recordings, is based on recordings I made inside of Richard Serra's massive "Vortex" sculpture that stands in front of the Fort Worth, TX Museum of Modern Art as well as recordings realized inside of an abandoned railroad freight car that I came across in a roadside field in Wartrace, TN. Analyses of the prominent resonant frequencies of each space were used as the basis of materials for the flute and recorded processed sounds. The work juxtaposes the acoustical properties of two contrasting spaces — 
one, a large-scale public sculpture commissioned from one of the world’s most celebrated contemporary artists and frequented by visitors to a world class museum; the other, a discarded container assembled by unknown workers, its interior serving now only as an escapist pod for local drug users, its exterior an industrial relic for passersby.  “Vortex, boxcar” was recently premiered in Denmark by Marie Sønderskov.

This work is part of a planned series of compositions exploring the resonances of architectural spaces, objects, and the inherent soundscapes of natural and manmade environments. As with “Vortex, boxcar,” the subsequent pieces in this series will present contrasting spaces that form analogies with disparate social conditions.

"Vortex, Boxcar" for flute and electronics (Marie Sønderskov performing in Denmark)

Written after the 1992 flooding in Monpelier, Vermont, "Super Flumina Babylonis" by Dennis Bathory-Kitsz uses the Latin text to "By the waters of Babylon" to express everyone's sadness after the tragedy. The 12-voice music went unheard for over a decade until Gonçalo Lourenço and his Coro Odyssea performed it in 2003. The image photo here shows the flooding of our own home in 2011.

Voices past

Super Flumina Babylonis

This is my Spring 2024 project for the VCFA MFA in music composition performed by members of the Playground Ensemble, ensemble in residence on July  18, 2024 at Colorado College. I was exploring what we call the double empathy problem in autism circles.  The fixed media elements are in Bohlen Pierce tuning.  What does it mean to have tuning systems in counterpoint?

Playground Ensemble performers:
David Short, cello
David E. Farrell, laptop
Deborah Marshall, clarinet
Allyson Stibbards, viola
Sarah Whitnah, violin
Sonya Yeager-Meeks, flute

Later does not mean never...

Work realized in the Studios of the Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges / IMEB.
Anastasis is a five channel composition realized in the Studios of the Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges (IMEB). The work is programmatic in its representation of Christ's Descent into Limbo, a frequently treated subject in Medieval art. The majority of sounds used are derived from concrète sources, some of which carry conceptual weight. For example, the recurring sound of wax being scraped away from the metal surface of the candle trays at Bourges ' Cathedral St. Étienne: the residue of prayer — its removal, a daily chore (or performance ritual) captured in sound. Also, the emergence of a field recording of windmills at the work's close: transformation, by man, of nature's breath into energy as a storm blows in on the mountainside.
The piece itself is a stormy, transformative descent. Sounds of friction and resistance represent the interpenetration of spheres of existence. Long intense strokes of sound such as the dragging of wood along wood, glass on glass, and the grinding and scraping of metal against metal are fractured by abrupt, pointed declamations which lead, ultimately, to a representation of the breaking of the gates of hell. The only purely electronic sounds used in the composition are dense, bristling textures that occur as interruptions of the long descent. They represent the accumulation of a mysterious, electrical energy in the empty tomb above — static glimpses of that middle sphere.
Technical notes:
The orchestration of sound objects in the field of five loudspeakers adheres to an elastic gravitational plan assigned to each point in space. Generally speaking, the field of five speakers is “weighted” so that rear point sources support sounds lower in pitch than those occurring in the front of the projection plane where frequencies are raised. The relationship between each point source and its corresponding interval of transposition is in constant flux and its size serves to emphasize the degree of spatial depth present at any given moment. Sound sources are decorrelated to support and exaggerate the listener's experience of space.
— John Mallia


Anastasis

39 minute, single-movement work for alto saxophone and electronics by John Mallia. 
Eliot Gattegno, saxophone; John Mallia, electronics.

Intezonal Hap (2009) is dedicated to Eliot Gattegno, one of the most dedicated proponents of 
contemporary music I know. 

In this work, a plan generated through quasi-random ordering of a small set of spatially descriptive musical behaviors and sound fields yielded the current formal structure. Each behavioral detail was composed intuitively while attempting to remain within the generated form. The process meant positioning myself between spaces and between behaviors that describe each partition of the given premises. Each segment is set against an ambient ground composed from processed field recordings. Electronic resonances imposed on both the saxophone and the recordings smooth the boundaries of adjacent sound fields and wrap the materials in a series of long exhalations. 

- J.M.  


Interzonal Hap (live)

7 minute, microtonal work for cello and electronics. David Russell, cello; John Mallia, electronics.

Dodo (2009) was written at the kind request of Julia Werntz for the occasion of the Boston Microtonal Society’s 20th anniversary. The piece was composed for cellist David Russell, who has performed the piece several times. 

Last year, during a visit to New York City’s Museum of Natural History, while my 6-year-old son William was spending time looking at the expertly stuffed tigers, the skeleton of a dodo bird that happened to be  housed in the same large glass case caught my attention. I was reminded of the sad story of the extinct bird, and decided to treat it as the subject of a musical composition. The microtonal melodic lines used in the piece are characterized, alternately, by slow micro-descents and striving, angular lines that tend toward ascent but fail to reach a clear goal. The electronic component includes sounds coaxed from a
rare, and injured, vintage Buchla synthesizer.

— J.M.


Dodo (live)

Steve Owens grew up in upstate NY, and has a bachelor's in musicology, a master’s in Music Education and an MFA in music composition from Vermont College of Fine Arts.  He developed parallel careers as a concert flutist and as an educator in Vermont public schools.  He's published band, choral, and chamber compositions with Hal Leonard and Alry.  Steve has since left academics to pursue composition full time. Recent performances include a woodwind quintet played by City of Tomorrow, and an electro-acoustic sextet performed by The Playground Ensemble. His latest work, "Dysphoria" for the Truberry Duo, explores the inner experience of neurodivergence, drawing on his own experience as an autistic educator.