performed and written for Mikołaj Rytowski for the ATTACCA Festival 2024; premiered on June 1 at Druckereihalle im Ackermannshof, Basel, Switzerland

recording: Robin Michel
mixed by Isaac Roth Blumfield

The electronics for this work were recorded in part at the SWR Experimentalstudio in Freiburg, Germany with assistance from sound engineers Thomas Hummel and Luis Miehlich

link to binaural version (for listening with headphones): https://soundcloud.com/isaacrothblumfield/strange-symmetry-for-percussion-and-ambisonic-live-electronics-2024-binaural-version-use-headphones

strange symmetry | for percussion and ambisonic live electronics (2024) – stereo version

performed by Yarn/Wire at Paine Hall, Harvard University on February 28, 2025

Laura Barger – piano
Julia Den Boer – sampler & MIDI controller
Russell Greenberg – percussion
Dennis Sullivan – percussion

recording: Anthony DiBartolo
mix: Isaac Roth Blumfield

Program note:

In English, the word "dream" has a positive connotation, but there is a thin
boundary between a dream and a nightmare, and our experience of dreaming
rarely fits neatly into either category. In dreaming, a fluidity emerges between
bliss and dread, and one's desire to escape reality can collapse at any moment.
Familiar places, people, objects, animals might emerge, and as we dream we
know that it is both really them and really not them at the same time. Something
both illusory and deeply real is happening. While you listen, try to fall asleep.

The electronics for this work were prepared at the Südwestrundfunk Experimentalstudio in Freiburg, Germany through their Workstay program with assistance from Thomas Hummel, sound designer, with recordings performed by James Morley, cello, and Rebecca Lawrence, double bass


Like a dream I can' t wake up from | for Yarn/Wire & electronics (2024-25)

contact: isaac.blumfield@gmail.com

Isaac Roth Blumfield is a composer from Saint Paul, Minnesota, currently based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He writes experimental music for acoustic and electronic instruments which explores resonance, materiality, and memory through expanded sonic approaches towards instruments and objects. His music looks for the strange spaces between subjective and unconscious experience, exploring uncanny places between beauty, pain, and strangeness.
His music has been influenced through  through work with performers such as ensemble sonic space basel alumni, Schallfeld Ensemble, violinists Austin Wulliman and Chris Otto, line upon line percussion trio, Ensemble Modern, Barcelona Modern Ensemble, guitarist Francesco Palmieri and Jamie Monck, and Quartetto Maurice at programs such as the Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik, the Banff Centre for Creativity, Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, New Music on the Point, Valencia International Performance Academy, Ticino Musica Festival and Freie Universität Berlin im Sommer.  
His music has been broadcast on Swiss Public Radio and supported by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, Fondation Nicati - De Luze, and the Hirschmann Stiftung. He graduated with his Bachelor's degree in composition at New England Conservatory in Boston and a Master's degree in composition at the Hochschule für Musik FHNW in Basel, Switzerland and is currently pursuing post graduate studies at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna. His primary teachers have included Stratis Minakakis, Timothy McCormack, Caspar Johannes Walter, Svetlana Maras, and Clara Iannotta. He is currently a PhD candidate at Harvard University, studying with Chaya Czernowin and Hans Tutschku.

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