Electroacoustic

NOTE: For best experience, listen with headphones!

Hope Cowan, harp

“dans les dents de la guivre” is the opening movement of Valentina V., an extended monodrama for harp, multichannel electroacoustic sound, video, and lighting. In this work, the harpist adopts the persona of a historical figure: 14th-century noblewoman Valentina Visconti, whose life ended in tragedy and exile. Cast in five movements, Valentina V. presents an imagined scene near the end of Valentina’s life in which she is confined to her chamber with only her precious harp to confide in. Musical materials are in part derived from Jacob de Senleches’s song “La harpe de melodie,” which he likely composed as a gift for Valentina to sing and play herself. The music of “La harpe” is at times referenced directly; at other times, it emerges in a fragmented or distorted form, representing Valentina’s reminiscences as they are filtered through her fractured psyche.

Drawn from Victor Hugo’s poem “Canaris,” the opening movement’s title “dans les dents de la guivre” (“in the teeth of the viper”) refers to the Visconti family’s coat of arms: a serpentine creature devouring an infant. This horrifying image symbolized the Visconti’s despotic stranglehold over the city of Milan and was depicted in every building, manuscript, and work of art they commissioned. “dans les dents de la guivre” intersperses fragments of “La harpe de melodie” with sounds imitative of the mythical serpent, engendering a feeling of trepidation, anxiety, and suffocation.

"dans les dents de la guivre" was awarded First Prize in the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award (2022), First Prize in the ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Commissioning Program (2023), and an Honorable Mention in the Giga-Hertz Production Prize from Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe.

For more information:
www.timothyroymusic.com/valentina-v.html

dans les dents de la guivre (BINAURAL) — 2021

Please note: This recording is in a binaural stereo format, which simulates surround sound. For the best experience, please listen using headphones.

"Brompton & Braeswood" is an acousmatic piece inspired by my personal experience living through Hurricane Harvey. The title derives from the intersection where my wife and I were living at the time, along Brays Bayou in Houston. Central to my piece is a library of field recordings I captured at that intersection and along the bayou in the days immediately prior to Harvey making landfall. In composing "Brompton & Braeswood," I sought to present a series of vignettes of contrasting mood and representation. The piece’s opening presents the imagery and emotion of a violent storm. The storm is initially heard directly, then — after a door slams shut — from the perspective of someone taking shelter. The piece’s second vignette depicts the gentle but unrelenting, oppressive rainfall that accompanied the hurricane, and there is a marked shift in the music which draws the listener inward toward a place of introspection. At the time Harvey struck Houston, I had just arrived home from the hospital to recover from a major surgery, following a long period of illness. "Brompton & Braeswood" draws on my contemporaneous thoughts and feelings: those of intense worry and gloom, but also of optimism that my health would improve.

Aside from field recordings, other sound materials include noisy tones synthesized in Max/MSP, pitched wood, and piano and guitar samples. Sound was spatialized using higher-order ambisonic encoding.

"Brompton & Braeswood" was commissioned by New Music on the Bayou.

Brompton & Braeswood (2023) — BINAURAL

Brompton & Braeswood — BINAURAL (decoded with Harpex)

A few years ago I became interested in Christian Orthodoxy, a faith tradition as old as my own – Roman Catholicism – yet unfamiliar to most in the Western world.  I was seduced by the mysticism and sensuality of Orthodoxy, from the more poetic approach to theology to the engagement of the senses during the Divine Liturgy.  Of particular interest has been the dazzling artwork ubiquitous to Orthodox churches around the world known as iconography.  Usually a painting or mosaic presented on a flat panel, an icon depicts a holy individual or individuals, either alone or within the context of a specific event from scripture or sacred tradition.  Orthodoxy considers icons to be first and foremost didactic in nature, each one serving to convey a specific teaching or theological concept, facilitated in part through universally familiar symbolism.  But despite many artistic restraints, iconography is astonishingly nuanced and capable of elevating one’s attention to the heavens.  
	Archistrategos is a musical reaction to various iconographic depictions of Michael the Archangel.  In choosing materials, I reflected on the dual nature of the angel who is both a military leader charged with leading heaven’s armies against the Gates of Hell (“Archistrategos,” an ancient Greek military term for a commanding officer, is a common Orthodox reference to Michael) and a peaceful, protective entity. This duality gives rise to contrasting materials: sections marked by agitated rhythms, sharp attacks, short phrase lengths, dissonant pitch collections, and militant percussion writing are juxtaposed against passages of more tranquil, celestial music characterized by expansive, legato phrasing and a more consonant harmonic palette. In the climax of the work, elements from both musical domains are combined.  The aforementioned mysticism and sensuality of Orthodoxy inspired the unusual timbres (e.g. bowed woodblock and rubbed cowbells) and the sparseness and drawn-out pacing of the middle section.


Recorded reading session by UMKC graduate students. November 16, 2014.
Karen Hauge, flute/piccolo
James Westbrook, clarinet
Jennifer Fox Oliverio, trumpet
Catherine Fukuda, violin
Sascha Groschang, cello
Steven Landis, double bass
Charles Dickinson, piano
Julian Gibson, percussion
Jeff Seba, percussion
Adam Fontana, conductor
AJ Harbison, recording tech

Artwork by Richard L. Kittel, All Rights Reserved.


Archistrategos (2013-2014)

Sanctus

Memorial Acclamation B

Memorial Acclamation C

Great Amen

Agnus Dei

Note: Audio is in a binaural stereo format, which simulates "surround sound" when experienced through headphones. For the best experience, use headphones or earbuds.

Performance by Hope Cowan at Moores Opera House, Houston, TX
February 17, 2025

For more information, visit http://www.timothyroymusic.com/valentina-v.html

Valentina V. for solo harp, immersive electronics, and lighting (2024)

Live recording during Minneapolis songSLAM, January 2025 — Icehouse Minneapolis

Words by Phil Takemura Sears
Laura LeVoir, soprano
Timothy Roy, piano

Strange Night (2025)

The musical inspiration for this piece comes from my fascination with the murals of the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, China. The artwork famously depicts musicians performing while dancing and flying though the air. One image – that of a woman playing pipa behind her back – is so iconic that many Chinese dancers train in order to recreate her graceful pose. Behind the Back alludes to the ceremonial atmosphere of the Mogao murals while imagining the sort of music provided by the acrobatic women depicted within – a music which incorporates passages suggestive of dance and aerial maneuvers. Also present are oblique references to Jimi Hendrix, a consummate virtuoso who was known to play guitar with the instrument slung behind his back. At all times, the virtuosity and lyricism of the pipa is the focal point.

Recording: Ying-Chun Chen, pipa

Behind the Back was commissioned by The Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra and premiered by Su Yun-Han on June 26, 2016, at the National Theater of Taiwan in Taipei.

Behind the Back (2016)

To hear with Richard Johnson's original video art:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAzwZweqzA8&feature=youtu.be

One of the most striking and defining visuals of the United States Deep South is that of the southern live oak tree (Quercus virginiana) shrouded in Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides). A tangled and bluish-grey flowering plant, Spanish moss can be seen draped from the sprawling, gnarled branches of oaks throughout the region, hanging ghost-like across its swampy landscape. Southern Specter adopts this poetic image as its subject and is comprised of two different kinds of music. The first is both representational and external, in that it seeks to be a musical embodiment of a moss-covered tree, depicting the delicate moss swaying in a gentle breeze and the tree’s appearance under various gradations of sunlight. The second kind of music is expressive and internal, seeking to convey the various thoughts and feelings one might have upon viewing such an image. Having grown up on the Gulf Coast of Texas, I could not help but channel my own emotional experiences which have ranged from serenity, solemnness, and nostalgia to gloom and ominousness. Richard Johnson’s accompanying film plays with analogous concerns on the visual front: perspective, representation versus abstraction, light and shadow, and ambiguity.

Special thanks to Jungle Gardens of Avery Island, Louisiana, for film footage and inspiration.

Performance on April 8, 2018, by Loop38
Douglas DeVries, flute
Jacob Schafer, violin
Sergein Yap, viola
Nathan Watts, cello
Yvonne Chen, piano

Southern Specter (2018)

“Wunderkind” is a well-known German term historically applied to a person who possesses an extraordinary talent or brilliance (particularly musical) at an early age.  The creative impetus for this work was the desire to explore the intellectual workings of a developing child prodigy, the electronic component used to expand the palette of such a restricted instrument while representing the mind’s ear of the child.  All of the sounds in the fixed media were created by recording and processing my own toy piano.  I did in fact sit on the six-inch-high bench while doing so.

"Wunderkind" was awarded First Prize in the 2013 Prix Destellos, mixed media category (Mar del Plata, Argentina)
http://fundestellos.org/pageone.htm

Wunderkind for toy piano and computer (2011-2012)

Live performance by Birds on a Wire
Dalton Recital Hall, Western Michigan University
April 12, 2019

Sarah Bortz, flutes
Eric Dalmau, violin
Andrew Gagiu, cello
Spencer Gravel, percussion

Chatterbox explores the repetition and nearly constant presence of a single musical idea to the point of obsession. The title is a term used by sufferers of anxiety to refer to an unrelenting bombardment of worries and negative thoughts.

This piece is dedicated to my teachers at the University of Missouri-Kansas City: James Mobberley, Paul Rudy, and Chen Yi.

Chatterbox (2016) — Birds on a Wire Ensemble

Premiere performance at Southern Methodist University.
Sayako Kusaka, violin

Angst for solo violin (2005–2006)

TIMOTHY ROY (b. 1987, Nederland, Texas) composes music steeped in imagery and allusion, which seeks to elicit a sense of time, place, and feeling. With an output that encompasses works for acoustic instruments, electronic sound, and the intersection of these two realms, Roy endeavors to explore a broad range of mediums and contexts in which his work might be experienced.
 
Engagement with other disciplines of study is the lifeblood of Roy's creative practice. Recent projects have involved cooperation with practitioners in fields as varied as medieval and religious studies, ecology, dance, and film. His current slate of projects includes an ambisonic fixed media work, commissioned by ASCAP/SEAMUS and an orchestral work for the Shepherd Symphony Orchestra at Rice University.  
 
Roy’s music has been heard in concerts across the United States and twenty countries abroad, with performances by Ensemble Signal, Illinois Modern Ensemble, the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra, the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus, Loop38, violinist Sayako Kusaka, and pianists Keith Kirchoff, Adam Marks, Stacey Barelos, and Xenia Pestova. His music has been presented at such venues and events as the National Theater of Taipei, Music Biennale Zagreb, ZKM Karlsruhe, Ars Electronica, Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre (BEAST), Sonosfera Theatre (Pesaro, Italy), the DiMenna Center (NYC), San Francisco Tape Music Festival, Seoul International Computer Music Festival, Florida State University Festival of New Music, Bowling Green New Music Festival, June in Buffalo, Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium, Sonorities Festival Belfast, International Computer Music Festival (ICMC), Center of Cypriot Composers, Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) National Conference, Electronic Music Midwest, and the International Electroacoustic Music Festival of Chile, “Ai-maako.”
 
In 2024, Roy received an Honorable Mention in the McKnight Composer Fellowship awards from American Composers Forum. He has also received awards and recognition from the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award (First Prize, 2022), ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Commission Award (First Prize, 2023; Finalist, 2018), Robert Avalon International Competition for Composers (First Prize in Professional Division, 2023), Giga-Hertz Production Prize (Honorable Mention, 2022), Prix CIME from the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music (Distinction, 2023), Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest (Second Prize, 2023), New Music on the Bayou (2021 Black Bayou Composition Award), Sigma Alpha Iota Inter-American Music Awards (Winner, 2015), the International Competition of Electroacoustic Composition “Prix Destellos” (First Prize, 2013; Honorary Mention, 2019), Musicacoustica-Beijing Composition Competition (First Prize, student mixed media category, 2012), the First International Jean Sibelius Composition Competition (Finalist, 2015), the International Composition Competition “Città di Udine” (Finalist, 2012), and the I-Park Foundation (Resident Artist, 2018).
 
His work "Behind the Back" for pipa and electronics appears on Crossings: Contemporary Music for Chinese Instruments, The Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra’s debut album with Albany Records. His "Salve Regina" for chorus is published by Edition Peters.

He frequently collaborates with musicians to present works for instruments and electronics. In July 2021, he worked closely with Steven Takasugi to produce two portrait concerts of his works for amplified instruments and electronics during the Twin Cities New Music Festival. Other notable collaborations include performance of electronics for Kate Soper's Voices from the Killing Jar and for the North American premiere of Unsuk Chin's "Double Bind?" for violin and 8-channel audio, using proprietary motion-tracking sensors and software from Ircam.

He was a visiting faculty member at Western Michigan University during the 2018–2019 academic year, where he taught private composition lessons, undergraduate theory, and graduate seminars in musical form and the aesthetics of electroacoustic music. He previously taught at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, Kansas.
 
Roy and his wife currently reside in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he is choirmaster and organist at the Church of Saint Peter Roman Catholic Community. He is completing a doctorate at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music; there, he taught electronic music, theory, and composition, and served for three years as the Teaching Fellow for the Rice Electroacoustic Music Labs (REMLABS). His teachers have been Kurt Stallmann, Pierre Jalbert, Karim Al-Zand, James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Paul Rudy, Kevin Hanlon, Simon Sargon, and Martin Sweidel.

Timothy Roy

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