for fixed media
Duration: 5′ 42″
adagio is for electronically modified saxophone quartet on fixed media. Thanks to Andrew Mitroff, Elizabeth Shirk, John Vana, and Jeff Wickell for their performances.
It’s my hope that adagio can be listened to in a number of ways, including, among others, as the reexamination of a traditional form, as a study in microtonal deviations from the equal-tempered scale, and as an exploration of granular processing techniques. Its most unique characteristic, perhaps, is the way in which it takes the instrument and tape genre and turns it around. The source material is from a recording of a saxophone quartet performing from a score I composed. The tape was then time stretched, and the result accepted as a sonic “block of stone” from which I could sculpt a new form. Rather than having a performer shape his or her performance according to the tape, then, we have an instance in which a live performance determines the tape, and which subsequently is followed by the composer as a new piece is created.
Audio: