Katherine Dowling, piano; Terri Hron, electronics

Recorded October 2013 at la Salle Multimédia, Conservatoire de Montréal.

Recording: Amandine Pras

Malý velký svět – FATE

"stars behind stars" is inspired by the works of Sandeep Bhagwati and the unusual score formats. It is a 26-card musical game with rules for use.  The title is taken from a passage in Iris Murdoch's novel The Sea, The Sea, whose theme is reminiscent of the work Archipelago. The theme explored is the matter of space and the ruptures in it, in the form of supernovae. The cards in the game refer to the matter in space (cosmic rays, magnetic fields, dust, etc.), the types of stars (dwarfs, giants, etc.), and the chemical elements that make up these stars (hydrogen, helium, etc.). Five additional maps correspond to the years when supernovae (implosions of stars at the end of their lives) were visible from Earth without a telescope. By combining these stellar phenomena with the matter of space, this music invites you to consider a cosmic temporality far beyond our human experience. I would like to thank the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec for their support of this commission.

Cléo Palacio-Quintin: flutes/objects
Ben Duinker: percussion/objects
Terri Hron: recorder/objects

Stars Behind Stars Premiere

Piano: Luciane Cardassi
Electronics: Terri Hron

undressing a past

This piece is a transcription of a montage I made from recordings of the spring peeper frog chorus at Lac Trois Saumons in Quebec. It was written for Luciane Cardassi and Ronelle Schaufele

Luciane Cardassi: piano
Ronelle Schaufele: piano

Beast Calls: Pseudacris Crucifer Crucifer

HOWL ON features the live and processed sounds of François Houle and Terri Hron often under- and overblowing clarinets and recorders. Their first project, Monodie, is an improvisatory score that uses a set of samples tooled from mono recordings of their combined sound, creating a hybrid instrument between them.

Howl On Monodie Demo 1: Multiphonic Unisons

Howl On Monodie Demo 2: Bocal Call

CARDIAC (2016) commissioned by the Wapiti Ensemble, for piano, violin & electronics

Daniel Añez, piano
Geneviève Liboiron, violin

CARDIAC's four parts follow the progression of a person suffering from and being treated for a heart attack. The soundtrack is based on recordings of an improvisation session between Daniel Añez, playing analog synths, and myself, providing light real-time digital processing.

Recorded at Wapiti's studio in Montreal in August 2017.

CARDIAC

Beads of Time Sounding
composed by Terri Hron & Hildegard Westekamp
performed by Terri Hron

Terri’s visit to Hildegard’s former home village in North Germany happened in June of 2010 at a crucial time of transformation for both: Terri’s return to Canada after 10 years in Amsterdam and Hildegard’s goodbyes to her long-time family home. They simply set out to explore this intuitive time, roaming though places of childhood memories and landscapes of significance. 

The recording process itself was an intense exploration of the relationship between soundscape and musical instrument. Recordings were made at dawn and various other times of day, in or at the edge of deciduous forests, in the village graveyard, and near a shipping canal meandering through agricultural landscapes. Bird song was everywhere. Terri improvised with musical sounds on her three recorders, a G Alto, Tenor and a C Bass. Hildegard improvised with her microphone: sometimes the microphone would be still, picking up the recorder sounds close up with the bird ambience in the background; sometimes birdsong would make up the foreground and the recorder playing would melt into the general ambience; sometimes the microphone would be moving intuitively between bird song and recorder.  

The composition developed in the same spirit of exploration, improvisation and playfulness, searching in further depth for the relationship between soundscape and music, birdsong and recorder play, ambience and foreground solo, between electroacoustic soundtrack and live recorder performance. 

In a deeper sense this composition is perceived as a meditation on soundscape and music in general but as represented specifically through the soundscapes and musical instrument sounds reminiscent of and harkening back to memories of home and childhood pasts. 

Terri Hron
Hildegard Westerkamp
September 2016

Beads of Time Sounding Excerpt

Parting is based on Parting Friends from the American Sacred Harp tradition, and in particular, transformations I made of a recording of the song. Sacred Harp music is characterized by its participatory nature, full volume and frequent nasal timbre, aspects of which I play with in Parting, written for the Piano Erhu Project (PEP). 

PEP: Corey Hamm (Piano), Nicole Le (Erhu)

Premiere performance: World Music Days 2017, Roundhouse Vancouver, November 7, 2017

Roundhouse Performance Centre Nov 07 2017 Terri Hron - Parting (Performed By PEP)

folio 220r, from Hildegard to the Community of Monks before 1173: "At the establishment of the world, You made the cloud the ascent of the living birds which dwell in the height of the air." Nuée for piccolo, small playback devices and reverberant space is written for Marie-Hélène Breault, who soars above recordings of yak trains from around 5000 m in Nepal. These recordings and their transformations are played on small devices and moved around in space by a cloud of performers.  

Premiere performance, April 5, 2018
Gesù Church, Montréal

Marie-Hélène Breault: piccolo
Ghislaine Deschambault, Geneviève Dupuis, Terri Hron, Beverly Johnston, Cléo Palacio-Quintin, Danielle Palardy-Roger, Pamela Reimer: small playback devices

Nuée

Of All the Flowers for voices, historical keyboards and electronics was commissioned by Camerata Nova and premiered on January 28, 2020 at the Winnipeg New Music Festival.

It is inspired by the text and music of Guillaume de Machaut's De Toutes Flours.

This is a 5-minute selection of 3 excerpts from the 15-minute work.

Camerata Nova, Mel Braun conductor
Katelyn Clark, organetto & clavisimbalum
Terri Hron, electronics

From the archival recording made by Terri during the premiere performance.

Of All the Flowers – Excerpt

Manhattan Bridge was premiered by Ensemble Supermusique. The performers moved around and through the audience, with a surround diffusion of the electronics. The sounds played by the loudspeakers come from recordings of the Manhattan Bridge and of the members of Ensemble Supermusique who I recorded playing suspensions and passages. 

This is an excerpt from the second performance, April 7, 2019 by Ensemble SuperMusique at the Concordia Black Box, Montreal.

terrihron

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks