During the National Endowment for the Arts Individual Project Grant period (January 1994-December 1995) I composed two concertos for solo performers, chamber orchestra and computer.  In these two works I was able to develop my interest in the integration of solo and ensemble performance with computer music which transforms and reflects upon the richness of live performance.

The first work, Concerto for Saxophone, chamber orchestra and computer was completed in January 1995 and premiered  in 1997 by John Sampen with Paul Rardin conducting the Festival Orchestra during the 1997 Twentieth Century Music Festival at Towson University.  The second concerto, Concerto for cello, viola, chamber orchestra and computer  was completed in February, 1996 and will be premiered by Christian Colberg (viola) and David Shumway (cello) with Paul Rardin conducting the Festival Orchestra during the 1999 Twentieth Century Music Festival at Towson University.  Both concertos are approximately thirty minutes in duration.

About the music

Because the tradition of the concerto spans a considerable number of centuries, the genre offers a composer a rich context within which to present new ideas.  The traditional concerto's two primary agents of contrast are the soloist and the orchestra.  The interaction of these two forces (concertato principal) has historically represented the primary means of building and shaping a concerto.

During the past century the concertato principal has formed the basis of considerable exploration in design.  Among the most intriguing of these developments has been the inclusion of multi-layered contrasts of forces.  This has led to the inclusion of computer music in concertos and it is out of this developmental line that this work emerges.  Like others of its kind, the inclusion of computer music in this concerto folds a new agent of contrast into the traditional model creating a third dimension in the design of the concerto:

solo -- orchestra -- computer transformation of solo and orchestral music.

The interaction of these three forces is influenced by three modes for the treatment of musical ideas.  They are presentation (emerge), development (engage), and transformation (release).  These modes combine with the three-fold contrast of forces to produce a highly varied design.

The germinal musical ideas for the work are encapsulated in twenty brief cadenzas for solo saxophone.  While the twenty cadenzas are rarely presented by the soloist alone, the cadenzas, in their many developed and presentational guises, form the primary thread of continuity throughout the concerto.  These cadenzas present manifestations of basic musical characteristics (compression, reiteration, diffusion, sweep, climb, lilt, etc).  The cadenzas are further shaped by the three modes (presentation, development, and transformation) and by the multi-dimensional process of opposing forces described above.  All of this results in a labyrinthine web of forces, modes, and characters in which the saxophone presents musical ideas, the orchestra amplifies and develops these ideas and the computer transforms the saxophone and orchestral music.

This concerto was written for John Sampen and is one of two works composed between 1994 and 1996 under a composers special project grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.  Partial support for the composition of this work was also granted by the Faculty Research Committee of Towson University in Baltimore Maryland.

About the use of the computer

Integrated with the orchestra and soloist in this concerto is computer music that is realized in concert by a computer system running software that playes pre-recorded soundfiles into the mix of the live performance. MIDI sequences are also realized during performance using a digital sampler.  This has emerged as a practical way to synchronize digital music with live performance without requiring the performers to synchronize with tape. Using this method, the soloist and orchestra are freer to perform with temporal nuance which allows a more fluid, and musically-timed performance. The computer-controled digitally recorded music was created in the studio by the composer using sound manipulation software such as Csound, SoundHack, and MAX/msp. These software tools were primarily used to produce transformations based on cross-synthesis, phase vocoding, and complex dynamic filtering. Using both digital file playback and live processing allows for tightly-synchronized computer music as well as more elaborate pre-recorded passages.  The software systems are perfromed by a program designed by the composer using the MAX/msp programming environment.

Using both digital file playback and MIDI sequencing allows for tightly-synchronized computer music as well as more elaborate pre-recorded passages. The control of these systems is managed by a program designed by the composer using MAX software.