viola and fixed electronics (2012)
Mara Gearman, viola
Recorded at Jack Straw Studio, Seattle, WA
instrumentation
viola
stereo audio file
details
Duration: 9 minutes
Premiere: June 2, 2012
The Stone, New York, NY
purchase music
DIGITAL / PDF
Score and Audio File — $30
PRINT
Available from Theodore Front Musical Literature
program note
The goal of Seduction Involves Patience is to illuminate the viola’s powerful sound, expanding it outward to fill the performance space. The live instrument dodges and weaves through the electronic part, created entirely from viola recordings that repeatedly expand and contract from thick walls of sound to delicate ripples. Sometimes the live viola plays in the foreground, but at other times it slips around behind the electronics or blends seamlessly into the texture. Because the viola’s range resembles that of the human voice, it sounds to me as if it is singing a journey through a jagged mountain range in continually changing weather.