works » solo/electroacoustic

Commissioned by Benjamin Hopkins and the University of British Columbia
Year Composed: 2020
Duration: 0:10:00
Premiere: Benjamin Hopkins; 8/2020; Vancouver, British Columbia
Additional Performances: William Shi, piano (Eastman School of Music, NY); Hyun-Mook Lim, piano (Ryogoku Monten Hall, Tokyo, JP)

Program Notes:

Following a budding pianist who suffers from imposter syndrome, the piece is situated in their mental state during a performance of Maurice Ravel’s Une barque sur l’ocean from Miroirs. Exhibiting dissociative symptoms from derealization to amnesia, the pianist pollutes what is regarded as a masterpiece of the Western canon and pits themselves against the recordings of master pianists Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Frederic Chiu, and Abbey Simon, highlighting issues of mental health, failure, purpose, and belonging, challenged further by the uncertainties of this year.

Notes by Benjamin Hopkins:

“Peter Shin’s composition was built on a question that he posed to me: what were some piano pieces I listened to recordings for comfort? From the list I provided, he chose to work with Maurice Ravel’s Une barque sur l’ocean from Miroirs. I recorded parts of Une barque sur l’ocean, including one excerpt in which I simulated a catastrophic mid-recital meltdown. Shin created an electroacoustic collage that combines my recordings with short clips from recordings of the same piece by famous pianists that he has manipulated by bending pitches, distorting sound, and overlaying multiple recordings on top of each other. At times the piano recordings are distorted to sound like harp or prepared piano.

The manipulated recordings make up the first three minutes of the piece, until the manipulation of the piano transitions into rolls of thunder and a downpour of rain. The rain melts into a recording of tumultuous applause, which abruptly cuts off. Three recordings of the same excerpt of Une barque sur l’ocean are played back to back, followed by my recording of the simulated recital disaster. An audible sigh on the electronic track is followed by sounds of ocean waves and seagulls. The noises of speed boats or jet skis are blended into a return of the pitch- distorted Ravel recordings, and snippets of Oiseaux tristes, which merge into a recognizable cell phone alarm tone—it has been only a nightmare after all.”