complete list of
worksdiscographycontacthomecomplete list of
worksdiscographycontacthomeNimbus Violin
premiere: Miranda Cuckson, National Sawdust, 3/31/22
length: 10 minutes
date: 2022
instrumentation: solo violin and electronics
program note:
In 2016 I was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic to create an installation for the atrium of the Frank Gehry designed Walt Disney Concert Hall (in collaboration with opera director and MacArthur Fellow Yuval Sharon). The resulting project Nimbus embedded 32 loudspeakers in theatrical clouds playing a series of 21 compositions throughout the day for the entire 2016/17 season. One of these compositions was based on music I recorded with the concertmaster of the Philharmonic (Martin Chalifour). Later, I repurposed material from that piece, and one other, into a concert work Nimbus Violin for solo violin and electronics. This more recent piece was based on the following imagined scenario.
A violinist enters a canyon with magical qualities. She plays sounds to provoke the resonance of the space, and it responds with surprisingly rich echoes. Then she begins to make music with the echoes, but along the way she plays something that is a key to the space magically transforming itself, and it starts to make its own sounds and music that she plays along with. Finally, she goes back to the sound that unlocked the magic and returns to the previous state where the sounds are completely hers and she brings the piece to an end as it began.
Nimbus Violin was composed for Miranda Cuckson who gave the premiere performance at National Sawdust in 2022.