This piece was done as part of the “Art Inspired Music” Project at McNally Smith College of Music. Students were paired with a local visual artist, and tasked with “translating” a visual work of art to a musical medium. As a faculty member, I couldn’t resist, so I joined in the fun.

From the gallery book:

“When I first met Alonso at his studio to talk about the work, my initial reaction was to make short audio samples of the piece and compose a musical work out of those sounds (how often do you get to bang on an actual piece of Art?) However, what came to me while I was working on the music was much more involved than just using samples of the work. Alonso talked about the piece symbolizing the voyage made by his family when entering the United States as immigrants. Having never experienced a cultural uprooting so sever, I tried to abstract the idea into musical analogies, and treat the piece as a musical voyage. It begins in a world filled with natural sound: wood (incidentally, all taken from the sculpture itself), with some harmonic string instruments familiar to everyone (cello and violin). As the piece progresses, the natural sounds leave their familiar ground, and gradually transform into electronic sounds. Thus, the voyage of acoustic (familiar/home) to electronic (unfamiliar/new) is the voyage taken in my audio rendering of Alonso’s Voyage.”

Listen to an excerpt:

Documentation of this project can be found on the McNally Smith website. An excerpt focusing specifically on the creation of “After Voyage” is below.

Please Note:
If you would like a full quality version, please email sales@janthonyallen.com after purchasing.

The Saturations series of pieces all focus on a very narrow “subject” and, similar to photography, saturates it with as much of the subject as possible. In Saturations III-A for example, I took a very short sample of a choir (singing an earlier piece of mine). The original sample was only a few seconds long, but through a number of software processes this complete work was made entirely from that original sample.

Listen to an excerpt:

Contains three electronic works:
1. Saturations III-A
2. Saturations III-B
3. Saturations III-C

These pieces have been prorgrammed widely, including being featuring at the Society of Electro-Acoustic Music annual conference, International Computer Music Conferences, and at the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts.

Please Note:
If you would like a full quality version, please email sales@janthonyallen.com after purchasing.

A link to download a zip file containing all three tracks will be given after purchase.

Dry Cell (for soprano saxophone and electronics) was originally conceived as a narrative: In a future dystopic world absent of humans, only the remains of our technology survive. With energy running out, the “batteries” are left gasping for power. The piece begins in the “old west” of this future age, and as it progresses (and builds in intensity) we move into the remains of our major cities and see the remains of urban sprawl and the batteries clinging to life. The piece is loosely inspired by Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us.

Dry Cell was premiered at the Third Practice Festival, Richmond VA in 2009. performed by Michael Straus.

This piece was made possible by the What are you looking at Commissioning Fund directed by Michael Straus in conjunction with consortium members Erik Rönmark, Jan Berry Baker, Vicki Purslow, George Weremchuk, Alex Sellers, Matthew McClure, Ryan Lemoine, Grif?n Campbell and Joey Trahan.

NOTE: Due to commissioning agreements, this piece will become available for sale in October, 2010. If you would like to pre-order a copy, please email sales@janthonyallen.com.

Sample Pages:

This work qualifies for the Performance Incentive Program.

Printed Score

Downloadable Score

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Available winter, 2010…

Kinesthesia: Music for String Quartet and Electronics.

Innova Records

This recording is made possible by the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative fund, with commission support from the the Jerome Foundation, Meet the Composer, American Composers Forum, and the Southern Theater.

Track Listing:
Kinesthesia I: Depraved Indifference
1. Chaconne
2. Instrumental No. 1
3. A Moment with Ronald Hawk
4. The Path of Least Resistance

Kinesthesia II: Evoked Potentials
5. Chorale
6. Instrumental No. 2
7. The Angle of Repose
8. Push