Starting from Conlon Nancarrow’s Studies for Player Piano, I did orchestrations of these pieces for Pipe Organ, Disklavier and electronics. The work with these compositions instigated further exploration of improvisation with these mechanic instruments in combination with my improvisation software. As each Pipe Organ is unique, the orchestration is necessarily also unique for each instrument. Two concerts of this material - in Stavanger Concert Hall and the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim - show how differently the music is shaped to match the possibilities of these two instruments and venues. Nancarrow’s music requires a quite extraordinary degree of articulation due to the rhythmic passages and high tempi. Sometimes an individual adjustment of each single note would be required, due to slight differences in timing between organ pipes.
Algorithms and automation are ubiquitous in our modern society, and Nancarrow’s compositions allow an interesting perspective on automation and mechanization within an expressive aesthetic context. It also sheds light on the necessity of manual labour of implementation and adaption to make the algorithms matter for human communication. The improvisation software is based on relatively simple algorithms and serial techniques. It comes to life in the interaction with the live performer, where data is continuously updated from the performer action.
An extensive description of issues encountered in the production can be found in the paper “An interface to an interface to an interface in the Proceedings of the International Conference on Live Interfaces 2020.

Cassette cover by Arne Skeie

Release page at Crónica

Thanks to Miguel Carvalhais at Cronica, to Arne Skeie for cover for cover, to Karl Klaseie for mastering, to Jan Tro for initially introducting med to Nancarrow, and to Nils Henrik Aasheim for nugding me into doing the project again.

Tags: music, release, selected

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