Earth

Anticenter Stream, composition: Old Stars was written in collaboration with astronomer Jeff Carlin, who's research focuses on the streams of stars left behind by these dwarf galaxies when they venture too close to our much more massive Milky Way galaxy. One of these streams, known as the Anticenter Stream, was thought to be part of a much larger ring of stars, but Jeff has shown that it is likely a distinct entity. This discovery adds to our understanding of how large galaxies like the Milky Way are built up over time. Kemper’s composition, Anticenter Stream, composition: Old Stars is a meditation on Carlin’s research as well as astronomy’s role in explaining the construction of the universe. 

Anticenter Stream: Composition Old Stars

Mystification is an exploration of the juxtaposition between simplicity/complexity, consonance/dissonance, and clarity/distortion. This piece consists of two contradictory trajectories. The acoustic instruments move from a highly complex and dissonant texture to a relatively simple and consonant one. At the same time, the computer processing begins by simply amplifying the instruments. Over the course of the piece the computer begins to alter the sounds of the instruments, processing them with increasing complexity. The result is a kind of mirror form with different versions of simplicity/complexity, consonance/dissonance, and clarity/distortion at either end. 

Mystification

Elemental Dialogues Water (soundtrack)

Rhythmanalysis is a concept developed by philosopher Henri Lefebvre to analyze how the periodic sounds of urban spaces relate to the experience of a place. Rhythmanalysis I: New Brunswick for string quartet and computer, explores the soundscape of two locations in New Brunswick, NJ—Bettenbender Plaza, located on the Douglass campus of Rutgers University, home to the Mason Gross School of the Arts, and the intersection between George and Somerset streets downtown, across from the New Brunswick train station. Rhythmanalysis I: New Brunswick was commissioned by the Moevs family of Robert Moevs, a student of Walter Piston and Nadia Boulanger and Professor of Music at Rutgers and Douglass College from 1964-1991.

Beginning with location recordings of each location, sonographic analysis and music information retrieval (MIR) techniques are used to analyze timing, amplitude, and frequency information. This data is mapped to rhythm, pitch, and velocity in MIDI and used to generate a musical score for acoustic instruments. I then combine the instrumental part with sections of the original field recording, electroacoustic textures, and live processing, emphasizing the unique sonic characteristics of each recording site.

The first movement reflects the ebb and flow of student activity during the middle of a school day. Bettenbender Plaza is situated between a number of different academic buildings and performance facilities at Rutgers. Analysis of this location recording mapped patterns of movement and sound to moments of activity and stasis within the movement. The musical material is drawn from Moevs’ first string quartet, echoing the impact that the composer had on the musical vibrancy at Rutgers. Other elements include references to environmental sound, quotations from a wind ensemble rehearsal audible on the plaza, and excerpts from in-between movements from the archival recording of Moevs’ quartet.

The second movement focuses on a busy intersection in downtown New Brunswick across from the train station, where trains, buses, cars, and pedestrians converge. This high-density urban center, designated as a “transit village” by the New Jersey Department of Transportation in 2005, encouraging development that promotes “vibrant, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods where people can live, shop, work and play without relying on automobiles.” Incorporating motivic material from the first movement, the rhythms and in this movement are determined by analyzing the location recording for passing vehicles. The beginning of this movement features unprocessed soundscape, with the sonification of passing vehicle data mixed in. Following this slow introduction, the string quartet plays a sped up, quantized version of this rhythm set against the backdrop of urban soundscape where the sounds of vehicles have been removed. Thus, the quartet embodies the sound of passing vehicles. The harmonic content of this movement is determined by the frequencies in the recording. Characteristic sounds from this location are mixed in, including a pedestrian warning siren, train bells, and emergency vehicles.

Rhythmanalysis I: New Brunswick, I: Bettenbender Plaza, echoes of Robert Moevs

IV. Megrez from The Seven Stars

Breath (Excerpt)

In Illo Tempore (Section 3, excerpt)

In Illo Tempore (Section 1, excerpt)

Lament (Excerpt)

I. Water (Excerpt) from Mythical Spaces

Flying home for Thanksgiving in 2005 I looked out the window of the plane into a shimmering cloud that appeared to glow from within. As we traveled through this cloud, points of light seemed to flicker and dance around. This piece puts the listener inside a world of gradually evolving multiphonics overlaid with points of melody that eventually collide in unison.

Gliding Through a Misty Phosphorescence

Consisting of processed recordings of the first movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat Major, Stick-Slide, Strike juxtaposes what we think of as the continuous action of bowing, which actually consists of micro-level variations in kinetic friction (sliding) vs. static friction (sticking), with the discrete mechanical strike of a piano’s hammers. Stretching the sound of the bowed instruments magnifies these moments of sliding and sticking, with the overall texture of the piece slowly morphing from the continuous to the discrete.  Stick-Slide, Strike was composed for the Kaleidosonic Music Festival in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Technology in Music and Related Arts (TIMARA) department at Oberlin Conservatory.

Stick-Slide, Strike

Keith Kirchoff, Piano

Oiseaux Naturels: LA River (2019) for piano and fixed media electronics is based on the sounds of birds found in the Glendale Narrows section of the Los Angeles River. The title playfully references Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques, as the piece explores the sound of everyday birds of this natural oasis located in the middle of Los Angeles, including sparrows, finches, and geese. The piece consists of three sections, each focusing on a specific bird’s song, as well as a different perspective on the relationship between the river and the surrounding urban environment.

Oiseaux Naturels: LA River is the third piece in the composer’s Rhythmanalysis series that explores urban soundscapes. Henri Lefebvre developed the concept of Rhythmanalysis to analyze how the periodic sounds of urban spaces relate to the experience of a place. The electronic component of Oiseaux Naturels: LA River is based on audio recordings taken at the Glendale Narrows. This section of the river, just north of Downtown LA, has a soft bottom and is home to many different species of birds. The recorded bird songs are analyzed using sonographic analysis and music information retrieval (MIR) techniques to produce timing, amplitude, and frequency information. This data is mapped to rhythm and pitch, imparting the gestures and timing of the bird songs onto the piano part, which references Messiaen’s Catalogue d'oiseaux. Processed and unprocessed bird songs, as well as the sound of the environment, including airplanes, traffic, and water are also included. Oiseaux Naturels: LA River is based on the work of L.A. Listens (lalistens.org), a collective focused on urban sound co-founded by the composer.

Oiseaux Naturels: LA River

Mike Truesdell, marimba

Boyle Heights (Rhythmanalysis II) for marimba and fixed media electronics explores the soundscape, history, and cultural identity of Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights neighborhood. Boyle Heights is a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood in East L.A. known for its central role in Chicano art and culture. In the first half of the twentieth century, Boyle Heights was home to large Jewish and Japanese-American communities. After World War II, the internment of Japanese-American residents, redlining, and freeway construction underpinned a demographic shift. By the 1960s Boyle Heights became the neighborhood that it is today, which is currently engaged in a battle to retain its Mexican-American cultural identity in the face of a wave of gentrification that is sweeping over East L.A.

Boyle Heights unfolds in three sections, each bookended by a sonification of traffic patterns. The first section evokes Boyle Heights’ Jewish and Japanese cultural history through a marimba part inspired by the Jewish worker’s song “Di Shvue” combined with the Hirajōshi Japanese scale. This is set against the backdrop of an electronic texture comprised of recordings of radios processed to sound like they are from the early days of wireless broadcast. The second section explores Boyle Heights’ current soundscape, which is shaped by its Mexican-American cultural identity. Sounds unique to this neighborhood include mariachi musicians for hire who gather at Mariachi Plaza and the sound of storefront radios on Cesar E. Chavez Avenue. The third section contemplates the future of Boyle Heights. A time-stretched siren and the sound of helicopters point to the community’s fight against gentrification, while the minimalistic, repetitive rhythms represent the unrelenting pace of development in East L.A.

Boyle Heights (Rhythmanalysis II) is the second piece in the composer’s Rhythmanalysis series that explores urban soundscapes. Henri Lefebvre developed the concept of Rhythmanalysis to analyze how the periodic sounds of urban spaces relate to the experience of a place. The electronic component of Boyle Heights is based on audio recordings taken in Boyle Heights, which are used in both raw and processed form. The most prevalent sound in these recordings, passing vehicular traffic, is analyzed using sonographic analysis and music information retrieval (MIR) techniques to produce timing, amplitude, and frequency information. This data is mapped to rhythm and pitch in the marimba part, producing a sonification of the ebb and flow of vehicular traffic that creates a “rhythm” of the neighborhood. This piece was written for percussionist Mike Truesdell and is based on the work of L.A. Listens (lalistens.org), a collective focused on urban sound co-founded by the composer.

Boyle Heights (Rhythmanalysis II)

Associate Professor of Music Technology and Composition at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. Co-founder of Expressive Machines Musical Instruments (EMMI).

Steven Kemper

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