works » small chamber ensemble/electroacoustic
Screaming Shapes
for amplified flute, bass clarinet, violin, cello, fixed electronics, and dance
Commissioned by the Aspen Music Festival
Year Composed: 2017, rev. 2023
Duration: 0:05:20
Premiere: 8/3/2017: Los Angeles Philharmonic Noon to Midnight; Kaleidoscope; Iris Company
Additional Performances: San Francisco Symphony (SoundBox: Alexi Kenney’s Dream Awake, San Francisco, CA); Riot Ensemble (London, UK), ensemble mise-en (Brooklyn, NY), Brightwork newmusic at Hear Now Festival (Los Angeles, CA), Berkeley Symphony, Tanglewood Music Festival, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, OSSIA New Music (Eastman School of Music, NY), University of Minnesota New Music Ensemble, Ecco Ensemble (Berkeley, CA), ArtShare L.A.
Program Notes:
Through club-induced audiogenic epilepsy, extreme puppetry, and vocal fricatives on the verge of intelligibility, this work is a guessing game of who is doing what. Based on the 2016 U.S. sociopolitical events, a live amplified quartet duels with an electronic quartet, flickering between harmonious commingling and bouts of grating friction.
Untitled
clinging to a smooth surface scratching fingernails backwards
tippest top in the empty air
looming untouchable up ahead
a golden wheel made of wheels
curling in horror, screaming shapes to fill the yawning gulf
a pin I wear to ensure I’m always small
unending over and over like a river for centuries
not quite! not quite! not quite!
— Nick Volpert, November 8, 2016