Lento Assai, by Ludwig van Beethoven (arr. by P.H. Smith)

From the string quartet no. 16, op. 135.

  First Light, by Chris Sainsbury

In Australian composer Chris Sainsbury’s “First Flight” you can hear a new approach to connecting orchestral music to the natural world: Sainsbury thinks in terms of “ground sounds” and “sky sounds” and explores the spaces these ideas evoke for him. The resulting music is colorful and expressive.

As Chris explains …

“The terms are original (as far as I know) and deliberately uncomplicated. They are Australian for me, or even local to my place. I am now thinking and hearing these as ‘elements of music’ (and of course they cross-over with the various elements of music that we know). The difference is that I’m working somewhere between natural sound sources, music and place. It’s not just music that I’m writing. I’m also creating a place, and in that place the world can turn slowly, for me at least. And here I can articulate matters in a context that I own, rather than using an imposed context from a myriad of styles and descriptions about music. I really like the simplicity of ground sounds and sky sounds as terms and in my music. It does not necessarily mean my music is different. It’s just a difference in terms of approach.

“Ground sounds are characterized by sustain, repetitive device, ‘melod-ercussion’, and the non-development of idea (in a Western sense). These are present through sustain, subtle convergences, absence of dramatic interpolations, veiled ostinati, use of tone-scenes (the dominance of particular colour combinations), and subtle melod-ercussive device (melodic thumps, scratchings, breaks and bumps).

“Sky sounds include the phenomenon of sky reverb and sky amplification, which vary in the natural environment with landscape, weather and time of day. At various points I set out to orchestrate this reverb and amplification into the work. Sky sounds are also near-melodies, being melodic fragments that fall from the sky.

“Near-melodies are the melodic fragments of birds. They sound short songs and calls, often fantastic tunes which they abandon as soon as they’ve begun. Of course they are entire for birds, but we need something longer to call ‘a piece’. In this light I string them together end on end making major themes, and ‘classicising’ them. There are however, many near-melodies that are left in tact in the work, often flittering and fluttering about the major themes, almost a nuisance to themes and often abandoned as soon as sounded. There are some 40 bird calls or songs in all. With this amount of ‘tunes’ rolling one can see the need to be careful about Western developmental thinking. There is no augmentation of interval, nor inversion of tune, nor fragmentation or such device. I have used simpler treatments such as transposing up a step and have at times expanded the rhythm of the near- melodies.

“Basically I suspended part of me the composer and I didn’t mess too much with the birds! I also use the pulsing of cicadas and small frogs that live in the acacia trees near my house. These also I consider to be sky sounds.

Some near-melodies in the work are clearly identifiable bird sounds, down to the species. Some are ‘my close rendition’ of a bird sound that I heard and notated and whilst it works for listeners as bird sound, it would be difficult to identify the species (especially some of the parrots). The species include the Pied Butcher-birds and the Little Wattlebird, the Common Koel, Plovers, the male Satin Bower-bird, Currawongs, the Australian Magpie, the Rock Warbler, the Channel-billed Cuckoo, Lorikeets and more.

“I mainly utilise the sounds of the Pied Butcherbird and the Little Wattlebird, the later grounding in pitch what first appeared in cackles. Birds don’t necessarily sing ‘in tune’ within our Western scale system. All of their tunes here are effectively classicised into a twelve note system. It is a vehicle which assists the listener to ‘hear my local environment’, essentially enabling one to stand alongside me and particpate in that First Light singing.

Other pieces by Chris Sainsbury include:

• Bushfire – a Concerto for Cor anglais and Strings
• Concerto for Guitar – The Luthier
• The Wellbeing Clarinet Concertino
• Brackish Songs (Guitar and mezzo-soprano)
• Lydian Caprice for String Quartet

  Imperial March, by John Williams

We made this new recording (March, 2012) to test a set of new brass instruments from Sample Modeling: trumpet, french horn, trombone, bass trombone and tuba.

PLAY   Pavane for a dead princes, by Maurice Ravel

Ravel intended this piece to be played extremely slowly – more slowly than almost any modern interpretation, according to his biographer Benjamin Ivry. The critic Emile Vuillermoz complained that Ravel’s playing of the work was “unutterably slow.” However, the composer was not impressed by interpretations that plodded. After a performance by Charles Oulmont, Ravel mentioned to him that the piece was called “Pavane for a dead princess”, not “dead Pavane for a princess” – from Wikipedia

Gordon Wallin’s “Skiball” is like a cheery run down a mountainside. Listen for the sharp turns depicted by cymbals and the swirling descent to the bottom with a final stop, perhaps at the doorstep of a warm chalet.

Suitable for holiday concert programming, “Skiball” is available for performance by contacting the composer. The world premiere of original symphonic band version of “Skiball” was performed by the University of Illinois Symphonic Band.

Gordon Wallin is a performing musician, teacher and composer. He has won awards from the American Song Festival and is featured as pianist/arranger on Oakley Record’s “Christmas” and “Romantic” Series, Lake Shore Records’ “Classics of the Stage” Series, and “Christmas For a New Age” CD. His impressionistic album “New England Memories”, has achieved good success on the East Coast.

He is currently introducing his new patriotic-themed multi-media symphonic experience, “A Sonic Portrait,” along with “December Nights,” a multi-faceted symphonic holiday presentation.

Music by Gordon Wallin

We’re proud to announce the completion of the world premiere recording of Michael Staley’s evocative new ballet Pompeii (2011).

Sign up to be notified when the full recording is available.

Excerpts

We can now tune the instruments of our digital orchestra dynamically, in real time, just like orchestral musicians do. The computer can tell what intervals are playing and then tune them to fit the harmony more precisely than any fixed tuning.

This is a huge advance over equal temperament … an advance that beautifully exploits the power of the computer to analyze and modify sounds on the fly. This approach is far more powerful than “Auto-tune” which merely shoe-horns notes into predetermined frequencies without any awareness of what harmonies are being played at the moment.  For example, dynamic tuning can sense that a major third is being played, and make it more consonant.  Later, one of those same notes might be part of a minor third, and so must be tuned differently to make the minor third as consonant as possible.

Pianos (and computers that blindly adopt their fixed tuning approach) cannot change the pitch of their notes on the fly, but orchestras, choirs, string quartets, etc. can, and do.  That’s part of what helps blend sounds into a pleasing whole.

In Bach’s day a compromise tuning system was all the rage. Keyboard instruments were tuned so that every note was equally out of tune. But the computer can determine what intervals are sounding at any given moment and tune them very close to their perfect form.  Indeed, that’s what great musicians do when they play together. And now digital orchestras can do it, too, using Hermode tuning in Apple’s Logic Pro software, along with the latest version of Vienna Instruments Pro by the Vienna Symphonic Library.

Earlier versions of the Vienna Instruments ignore Logic’s tuning commands.  And not all audio workstation software implements Hermode tuning.

We’ve completed our performance and recording of Mike Barnett’s tour-de-force concerto for piano and orchestra, “Lucifer Rising.”

  Lucifer Rising, for piano and orchestra, by Mike Barnett (20 minutes)

Contact Mike if you’d like to play or commission a new work:  Mike Barnett

Composer David Moulton has been commissioned to create music and sound design for Kansas City’s new Kauffmann Center for the Performing Arts opening in September. Moulton uses customized musical building blocks created by the Fauxharmonic Orchestra to create music that appears to move through space, either “bouncing” or “sweeping” from one loudspeaker to another.

In the central atrium sound will appear to rise from the bottom when triggered by pedestrians walking in from their cars, and will appear to fall when they return from the center itself.  According to Moulton, the music will be “understated, leaving the pedestrians open to anticipation of what might be next, and how it will appear to change with their changes in position, rather than a pervasive sonic perfume that is so typical of most public music playback scenarios.”

About David Moulton

David Moulton is a composer and producer with expertise in acoustics and electronic music.  With degrees from Bard College and The Juilliard School of Music, he studied with Jacob Druckman, Vincent Persichetti, Luciano Berio and Roger Sessions.  He has composed numerous large, multi-channel electronic music works, and has pioneered composition an music production in a six-channel periphonic format.  He was nominated for a Grammy in 2000 for Best Engineered Classical Recording (George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children).

Moulton is one of the inventors of acoustic lens technology, now owned and used by Danish audio manufacturer Bang & Olufsen, and used in their groundbreaking speakers, as well as in cars made by Audi, Aston Martin and Mercedes Benz.  Moulton also taught at the State University of New York, Berklee College of Music, the University of Massachusetts and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.  He serves as a trustee for the New England Institute of Art.

Videos

We’d love to feature your video of the Kauffman Center atrium and parking garage music.  (It’s the only way we can show what it’s like).  If you have one, send us the link at info@fauxharmonic.com.

The Fauxharmonic Orchestra’s original film score won the gold award for “best use of music” at the 2011 International Visual Communications Association (IVCA) Awards ceremony in London, England.

Composed by Paul Henry Smith, the orchestral score brings a magical, cinematic grandeur to “The Spirit Within,” an effects-heavy corporate film produced for Laing O’Rourke by London-based communications firm Cheerful Scout.

“It’s quite a thrill to be able to use orchestral music—previously a luxury completely beyond my wildest imaginings,” said Cheerful Scout CEO Peter Litten, who also praised Smith’s music as “one of the best scores I have ever had composed for anything. Inspirational, clever, witty and altogether fabulous.”

“The Spirit Within” Creating an inspiring and unique film to generate a sense of pride among internal staff and showcase Laing O’Rourke’s exceptional portfolio of key projects to external audiences via the sales teams.

IVCA awards are recognized internationally as marks of excellence for effective business communication in corporate video, live events, multimedia projects, business television and websites. The awards set a standard of excellence and introduce clients to programs and projects which have made a significant impact on business.

Winners are presented before an audience of commissioners, government representatives, industry colleagues and the media at a Gala Awards Ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London, held every spring.