Stereophonic Live Performance for Laptop, Voice, Rose
Composition & Performance: Kent Clelland
Duration: 19:40
(for Art Jarvinen) u.a. Linz, 2011
| “I Am Standing Through A Rose” is an electro-acoustic live laptop performance in which Kent recites a text live (into a flower) which gets sampled into the computer and processed, recycled, and re-serialized into the fragments which you hear here. Amidst a backdrop of live-sequenced pulse-width-modulations, the Alvin Lucier inspired text evolves into a melange of syllables, snippets, and shards of words layered to create a textural wordscape. The computer music instruments used in this composition were first built and performed by Kent during the “SWR New Jazz Meeting 2003.” Inherent to their design is both the master-able haptic user interface which provides a basis for improvisation and the ability to capture live audio signals into the system (Live Sampling) and manipulate them live on stage. This performance was recorded Live at the Kapu in Linz, AT March 2011. |
Original Program notes from 2011:
In 1998 Art Jarvinen invited me to perform on his
concert series in Los Angeles: "Fault Lines." I had
just returned to SoCal from having spent a year in
Freiburg, Germany realizing electro- acoustic
compositions at the Experimentalstudio. Art thought
it would be a good idea to expose LA to some of
this, and wanted me to realize Alvin Lucier's "I Am
Sitting In A Room" live before an audience. Art
provided 2 Studer 2-track tape machines and also
measured out a tape-loop that would suffice for a
live realization and together we changed the text to
suit the needs of the performance (standing, not
sitting; in the SAME room, not in a DIFFERENT romm,
&c). I also performed the text with more swooping
and active inflections in order to stimulate the
(small) hall as much as possible. The recording of
this performance turned out VERY well and Art
especially preferred it to the original (Lucier)
recording, insisting on playing my version for his
music history students (at CalArts). It came as a
big surprise to many of us that Lucier should
survive Jarvinen, but LIFE can be very unpredictable
in it's ways… I therefore dedicate this
composition to Arthur Jarvinen (1956-2010).
Many thanks to both Enrique Tomas for the invitation to perform in Linz, and jana° (Honegger) for encouraging, enabling, and stimulating both the creative laptoppery and providing the inspiration as well as transportation.