The CHIME Studio presents five works by Department of Music composers

Composers from the Department of Music's CHIME Studio share five recent works. Every work was edited, mixed, mastered, and produced by the composers.

Performed by Paul Novack

While many of my pieces are jagged and quickly developing, meditation inhabits a static and shimmering world shaped by the sounds of the flute. I wrote this piece in the fall of 2019, and returning to its tranquil landscape and to the sounds that I love to make on my flute a year later during the pandemic was like a musical comfort food.

For the past two years I have been working on a neural-network mapped software instrument. This instrument takes 3 and 4 dimensional (or N-dimensional) control data and maps these controls to an M-dimensional synthesis space. The goal of the instrument is to allow for intuitive control over many-dimensional synthesis systems in 16 to 80 element parameter spaces. In the video below, I am soloing on my Live Modular Instrument, with the NN Synth as the lead voice. Before these past two years, I rarely soloed. But in the current circumstances, this has become one of my main modes of expression, and one I hope will augment my ensemble playing in the future.

for string quartet and tape, ​premiered by JACK Quartet

Commissioned by National Sawdust as part of the Live@NationalSawdust Digital Discovery Festival

Performed by John Corkill

Mx.Mechanica, for drum set and electronics, explores the drum set as a machine that a player enters into, activating it as an extension of the body, and in turn, causing the performer to become a component of the machine. The performer becomes the intercessor between the music – a sort of algorithm of rhythmic repeated phrases, and the machines sonic output. The fixed setup serves as a foil to the player, bringing out the similarities between humans and machines while also demonstrating the impossibility of the human becoming fully mechanised.

For more information, visit the CHIME website.