Spun Light is a chamber concerto in three movements for violin and five players. It follows a traditional fast – slow – fast sequence in its unfolding, and was written and recorded in the last half of 2020. While the violin often has a leadership role, the other instruments (flute / alto flute, viola, cello, bass, piano / toy piano) have strong voices that engage in quintessential chamber music interplay with the violin and with each other.
The Pink Echoes of a Sunrise begins and ends with repeated notes (mostly harmonics), with other bits of repeated notes serving to bind the movement together as it progresses. Seeking the Moon Dust has long stretches of melodic cantilena, mostly but not exclusively from the violin. We Have Danced This Dance Before has more interplay among all the instruments, with moments where several players find themselves in the perfect agreement of unison passages.
Overlaying the entire piece is how it was made during this pandemic time in which we live. This started from a very simple premise: since an ensemble of this size cannot safely rehearse and perform together, what kind of piece can I create that will use that fact as a feature rather than a bug? Several responses to that question guided me: a) a recorded piece that includes video, b) each player recording their part separately then edited together, and c) exploit techniques and musical ideas that can only be done on a recording.
Some of the “only possible in a studio” techniques I used are: clapping and finger-snapping (recorded separately and combined with a performer’s musical line), and adjusting the balance between the toy piano and other instruments (this allows the toy piano to be used in places where it would be too soft in a live performance). There are also some passages where the violist and cellist are each playing two musical lines. They too were recorded separately then edited together. Another significant technique was my composing sections of music that do not have to be precisely coordinated. Seeking the Moon Dust was written entirely this way – coordination points were achieved when the piece was edited together rather than players performing to a click track.