Pictures on Silence offers several widely divergent thematic programs. The links below take you to detailed pages about each, including sound clips, programs, and program notes.
The tradition of programmatic music is made contemporary in this concert combining music, video and pre-recorded sound. Tanox, by Australian composer Mark Oliverio, excerpts interviews with his grandfather to narrate a tense story between a young boxer and soldiers during WWII. Stephen Gorbos’ Plunge uses field recordings to create a prerecorded electronic maritime soundscape accompanied by film. Summer-Night Songs suggests the cycle of a storm during a hot summer evening through music, lighting and film. the woman with renoir’s umbrella was the inspiration for New York film maker Laurence Gingold’s silent film, In Dreams – these works are paired together in performance. Anna Rubin explores the timbral differences between the harp and saxophone in Silk and Steel.
Tanox
by Mark Oliveiro
Summer-Night Songs
by Andrew Earle Simpson
the woman with Renoir's umbrella by John Belkot
accompanied by...
In Dreams (a silent film)
by Laurence Gingold
October 29, 2011 at Livewire 2 Festival,
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Pictures on Silence has been awarded an Encore Grant from the American Composers Forum, to be used to promote performances of Australian composer Mark Oliveiro's Tanox for harp, saxophone, and electronics. Thank you to the American Composers Forum for their generosity!
A short video discussing the Encore Grant in more detail, featuring clips from Tanox.
Click here to download a promotional poster for Intersections.
Tanox is a new work for an unlikely multimedia ensemble, alto saxophone, harp and fixed media with stereo output. Functioning as a cycle of eight short movements that follows a narrative that is based on a true story. Solo, polyphonic and homophonic instrumental textures weave in and around the set electronic accompaniment. The spoken text, derived from a nostalgic interview from the storyteller and protagonist, is central to the development of each fixed-media segment. Manipulated and live harp and saxophone ornamentation contributes to the many textures and aesthetics of the work. Granular synthesis, phase- vocoding and other algorithmic processes contribute to the textures that produce the sometimes meandering, potentially ambient and frequently rhythmically charged attacks that constitute the form of the work.
In homage to the many great stories to come from the generations above, this work tells the story of my (Mark Oliveiro's) grandfather's near-death-experience during the Japanese occupation of Singapore (WWII). An organized physical confrontation that spirals out of control, Tanox retells the story of a 15 year-old boy's sparring encounter with a Japanese military officer. Conceptually, the two instruments speak as the two opposing yet central characters: Vivien (Tano), the boxer and the challenging Japanese Solider. Each miniature progresses through the various blocks of the story, following the pride and fall of a confident, young professional boxer. Listen intently to the text and sound world of the fixed media and instruments, as you are transported to a volatile time and place in history.
Plunge, commissioned by the harp and saxophone duo Pictures on Silence, uses field recordings I made while traveling in Europe during the summer of 2010. Most are from the harbor in Southampton, UK (the point of embarkation for both the Mayflower and the Titanic): boats and docks creaking in the waves, and the occasional plane passing overhead. Giving in to my long-time fascination with British accents, I also used bits of several conversations I recorded around Southampton and London. The conversations bubble up from the harbor, giving a verbal counterpoint to the long, plaintive melodic lines in the sax and harp. Overall, Plunge is a meditation on these human-made maritime sounds. As the piece progresses, the sounds become more mechanical and slightly menacing, perhaps reflecting on the underwater horizons we've recently been exploring and assailing.
the woman with Renoir's umbrella was written especially for Pictures on Silence in August of 2009 and, since its premiere, has been championed by the duo with performances throughout the region. The piece was originally conceived to place the listener within a sound world that would allow for the freedom to create one's own narrative. Musically, there are extremely simple motifs spaced between large spaces of silence. Silence used in this way moves beyond the normal functions of rests and, hopefully, begins to energize the space, allowing the listener to perceive this space as kinetic preparation for, or decay from, sound. By the time phrases and motifs develop and return, the listener should be able to recognize them as familiar characters or emotions, therefore, creating an environment for the listener's mind to create their own program. It was my intent to write a "soundtrack" to serve as a canvas for everyone's daydream. In the fall of 2010, New York filmmaker Laurence Gingold was commissioned to score his own visual narrative, having a recording of this piece as his only directive. Gingold's film is his own daydream in a rare moment of honest, singular perspective.
Summer-Night Songs is scored for the unusual but highly colorful ensemble of soprano saxophone and harp. Programmatic in inspiration, the work evokes the atmosphere of a summer evening and a brief but violent rainstorm which interrupts it. Coloristic effects in the harp create a sonorous backdrop for the saxophone’s lyrical “Night-songs," heard in the opening and closing sections of the piece. The central section depicts a coming rainstorm and its sudden arrival. Though fierce, it is a brief storm; and as the music clears, a harp cadenza (subtitled “the moon re-appearing through clouds”) leads gently to the closing section, in which calmer song-like music is heard.
Silk and Steel was commissioned by Jacqueline Pollauf and Noah Getz and premiered in 2010. The wonderful contrast of harp and saxophone were both inspiring and challenging to work with. I was definitely under the influence of the late 19th and early 20th century French composers in both the case of the harp and sax. I employ various invented scales around roving tone centers. The saxophone often has a soaring melismatic melody with a harp 'embroidered' accompaniment. Near the end the texture becomes very simple with a slow meandering melody which the harp and sax intone together until the opening flourish returns to round out the piece.