For Clarinet with Live Electronics and Video
Composed: May, 2024
Written for Brooke Miller as part of the Fulbright Arctic Initiative
Premiered in Nordic House in Reykjavík, Iceland as part of the Nordic Society for Aesthtics Conference
Ecosystem [512] is a piece for clarinet and live electronics. The work is built on nine months of acoustic survey recordings from Iceland’s National Parks. The piece compresses the recordings into a kaleidoscope of sounds that shift from location to location—wind sounds from the winter are layered on top of each other and filtered, waves crashing on a rocky beach mix with calls from a ptarmigan. The clarinet sits within this shifting sound world, joining the sounds and commenting on the fixed layers. The clarinet score is built on analysis of the acoustic surveys and uses metrics such as noise level and bird species activity to shape the direction of the piece. The clarinet sound is echoed through a complex delay network that obfuscates what is real and what is echoed, creating a fluid soundscape that ends in stasis.