Blog Week 7 (Nick M.)

Mira, Nick, Olivia, and Steve:

When I saw your presentation I was reminded of a piece I had heard last year which fused nature sounds with orchestra and electronic music into a rather seamless texture. I could not locate the piece I had heard, but reached out to a former professor who pointed me to a different piece which had a similar kind of fusion.

This movement is from a work by Mason Bates called Alternative energy. You might consider listening to as it constructs a narrative of a trajectory of energy production/consumption. It kind of ramps up its electronic techniques as it progresses, which seemed to relate your work to me.


Christopher, Hannah, Maya and Tessa:

The physically close collaboration of an instrument and dancer in your presentation was very compelling to me. I liked how you constructed clear characters for each of them. It reminded me of a song cycle by Schubert called Die schöne Müllerin. In the cycle multiple characters are depicted including the '"protagonist", a journeyman, and a brook. In the song below, The brook and the journeyman take turns speaking (via the vocalist). Throughout the piece, the brooks appears musically as well. In the final song, the journeyman has died and the brook is the only one to speak.

Aislinn, Bradley, Joey, and Nick:

In response to your idea about having zones delineated by colored lights (and sounds), I thought of this chamber opera I took part in a few years ago. I couldn't find a website where you could view more pictures or anything, but I do have this photo. There was a lot of play with colored lighting and in one scene we used a kind of inverted blue and red scheme where the character was lit from the front with blue light and from the back with red. It was a really cool effect and I wonder if you could experiment with having the lights from either side being cast on a person or object simultaneously.