Audio recording of Steven Fromholz - Love Songs from Felicity Records; FR-007 c. 1988. Side 1: Lady's Man. Isla Mujeres. Solitude. I'd Have To Be Crazy. A Candle Burns. Side 2: Blue Would I Be. Cheatin' Home To Me. Making' My Getaway. Here's That Rany Day. Jane's House.

Recording of Reinhard Lakomy's Die Himmelferhrt des Salvador Dalí.

The title is only a loose reference to the story in the Bible. What interests me about the story is the idea of a large mass of people knocking down a wall through the use of sound. The story gives credence to the notion of music as a catalyst for social change. Beyond the sheer physical impact that a large number of sounds contain, the music is a form of language which is capable of creating thoughts. The power of music lies in the simultaneous physical and intellectual seduction of the listener. In the composition, four hundred tracks of sound are often assembled to create the sense of a large mass. Three hundred and thirty-three tracks are created by dividing each of the seven octaves into fourty-eight notes. Brass, string, and wind instruments from the Western musical tradition and from other cultures are combined to create these textures. The remaining tracks are made up from the unpitched percussion instrument families. The working method allows each track to have its own identity in terms of frequency and tempo. The relationship between each individual layer and the mass effect can act as a metaphor for the relationship between the individual and society. …

All durations and pitches have aleatoric (random) values. Only pitches and durations of the form are constructed by another system. The source Material is created by some frequency modulated Sinus generators. You can hear this material at the beginning with a crescendo. The basic form is created directly out of this material by using two kinds of technique: 1. Subtraction (Filter) 2. Addition of filtered Material 3. Transposing and adding the new Transpositions. All of the structures of this piece are created by using these 3 techniques in concrete (the 3 transpositions of the basic form) or an abstract way (look to the upper line of the partitur). The concrete way: The basic form uses 3 types of filtration high (in the area of 5000 Hz: a), middle (between 500 and 800 Hz: b), low (in the area of 200 Hz: c). The basic form is created in this way: source material 30sec; 1a: 50sec; 1b: 30sec; 1c: 60sec; 2: 10sec 2+1: 40sec; 3: 20sec 3+1: 70sec. This form is used in 0.5 and 1.1 Transposition and 1.6 retrograde Transposition. This 3 Forms are positioned in that way, that they could culminate in the Transposition (look point 3) This construction …

"Industrielles" consists of a series of continuously evolving structures which resemble variations. Realized in the computer music studio at Northwestern University during the early winter months of 1988, the work is intended to reflect the stark, alienating atmosphere of a deserted industrial landscape at night.

Shimmering is one of two pieces that fell out of an earlier piece. At the outset it consisted pretty much of just a few strands of interesting musical material, material that seemed to invite a straightforward presentation of about five to seven minutes. While working on what I thought was to be a one-idea piece. I found myself treating the material more and more like modeling clay -- stretching it here, tearing off a dab there, sticking it on somewhere else, rolling it all into one big ball when I got stuck, pulling it apart again and again, continually molding it into different shapes. The result is something I never would, and never could, have anticipated. None of the threads of melodic filigree were actually composed; in the process of mixing patches of textures they seemed to just happen, in turn suggesting larger stretches of that and other kinds of textures. I feel the piece is both an exploration of the nooks and crannies of the composition process, and of reactions and responses to the particular and often peculiar ways in which the medium of computer music suggests and informs that process. In the final analysis, the piece is less …

"Prometheus Kommt" is a composition commissioned by NOK Korea. The premiere of the play took place in 1988 at the Olympic Stadium in Seoul. The first part (the legend of the fire) was played in monophony during the torchlight procession and the transfer of the Olympic flame; the second part (Harmony) at the final ceremonial by about 2000 speakers. The different sounds (trumpets, tamtam, vocals) were produced and ordered by a program on VAX 11/780. It was necessary to take into account, during the composition, the immensity of the stage, the need to use simple structures (given the number of listeners), the strict organization of the unfolding and the predictable atmosphere in such a situation.

... From one shore to another, edge to edge, moving surfaces, irrigated, improbable, architectural, desert, brutal, volatile ... Organic solitudes ... Swarming Cloud ... Travels ... Inner sail crossing, Towards absence ... Towards the immisson ... To the infinity ... Towards... Meetings / Resurgences at the four Cardinals.

The work "Reading a tarot" was created thanks to the use of granular synthesis in real time. It was generated after asking the tarot how to create a piece of music using granular synthesis. His answer about time past, present and future, suggested a sound journey of large proportions that was relatively, easily achieved using GSX and GEMSKX, two granular synthesis programs available in the Simon University PODX system.

Tamago no Furu Machi is inspired by a poem of the same name written by the Japanese poet Kazuko Shiraishi. The music was originally composed by Atau Tanaka for Marilyn DeReggi and two percussionists. It is performed here live with midi controllers. The multi-media version featuring Gayle Behrman and Mark Gaster's choreography and Renee Butler's scenic décor underscore the surrealist images of the poem. The giant calligraphy on the parchments represents the text of the poem.

Allegory (11’52”; 1987) is my second composition in the medium of computer music. It was created at the Brooklyn College Center for Computer Music on a Sun 3/160 computer, using the Csound synthesis program and Fromp, a music composition program developed by the composer that generates musical fractal structures. All of the sounds heard in this piece, pitched or otherwise, result from a filtering of white noise. The idea behind Allegory takes its inspiration from the music of the duduk, an ancient Armenian double reed instrument of a particularly haunting and beautiful quality. Often in duduk music, there are two players. One plays the melody while the other, through circular breathing, plays a continuous drone on a single pitch. The melody emerges from this drone, plays beautifully and all-too-briefly, only to return inevitably to the drone. In Allegory there is an ever-present drone composed of thirteen frequencies that are the source material for the entire piece. A fractal texture based on these frequencies emerges from the drone and grows to prominence, only to undergo a transformation: certain elements of the fractal die away while those which remain align themselves and synergize into a new quality, the sensation of a single …

Upon heels of the introductory resonant gestures, the Griffith Observer proceeds to explore a granular network of sound. Following a brief retreat, the observer steps into a dense space, highly kinetic in the actions of its minute components. The Observer soon climbs to an aural plateau from which the opportunity is taken to reflect upon its accomplishment. A strange, new atmosphere soon forms around the Observer, agitating the prior calm space with wide sonic clusters. After a grand shift in pitch, a settling of mood soothes the Observer as it is guided through the passage of a more gentle space. The Griffith Observer, upon discovering a path fluid in timbre, finally diffuses into the very space initially attracted its attentions.

Historically, Balkanization refers to the nationalistic division of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe into many small, antagonistic states in the years preceding World War I. For this piece, I have taken several very brief excerpts of traditional village music from Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, and have separated, put them into various levels of conflict, and have finally tried to reconcile them as much as possible. The tape from which I have taken the excerpts which form the basis of Balkanization was compiled by my sister from materials she collected on a trip to Yugoslavia and Bulgaria in the late 1970's.

Opening music for a Café-Theater show. The daily observations of a girl prolonged, a woman who still behaves as a young girl! From tea room chatter to a very, very, very… meager delirium.

"Timbral" was realized partly at the Magyar Radio Electronic Studio and partly at the Radio Belgrade Electronic Studio. The work in the studios involved diversity of technical equipment, both analog and digital. Though almost any sound is attainable by means more sophisticated equipment to day, nevertheless it could be maintained that every kind of equipment possesses undesirable consequences of the use of analog and digital techniques simultaneously, the blending of sounds in the piece was mainly accomplished vertically, not horizontally. Thus a possible critical variety was turned over to the enrichment of the sound palette. By emphasizing the importance of timbre (what the title derives from), it did not become dominate as a decoration but kept the role of an important constructive principle.

Recording of Pierre Chuchana and Marc Pira's Microclimats.

In memory of the Declaration of Human Rights 200 years ago with the buzz words 'Freedom, equality, brotherhood' was composed this piece that neither Metrum still knows bar division. Each tone takes as much time as it needs to unfold. The introduction of the metric system during the period of the French Revolution - to facilitate justice, and the detachment of today's music from a solid Timing - to gain freedom, both are directly related. This piece I have with the help of my self-written computer program 'PLAYTX' composed, which allows all the desired properties of a sound to manually enter and hear the sound as you type and so on to control.

It is an electroacoustic study for many composed of concrete sounds. The work presented is a search for a relationship between soft sounds and crystalline and metallic sounds.

A parterre of joy the pretty space trapeze. Mechanics of Lightning Febrile ions exploding the thunderbolt, the storm heard but misunderstood answers its sound. Stun! Splash of silences. Water itself carries within us who transport it, who season it with our multiple moods; well. A perfect liquid by listening to our cycle in condensation and in flow of attractions. Waterstone, from my heart a stroke of frost. The work is dedicated to Francis Dhomont. Pierre Bouchard: "Wedge the time between my teeth. Concide with the present. I like the sound ecology, the phonic reserves. In the mesh of training, too. Lead the noise in concerted moments ... That's it!”

It is used to describe that interval of time when a message travelling over a communications medium is susceptible to being interfered with by another. Analogous to the conversation where no person listens for an appropriate moment to speak, the messages are rendered unintelligible. "Through Windows of Vulnerability" explores both grounds of wide harmonies and sheer textures. This piece was created during the fall of 1988 at the Queen's University Electroacoustic Music Studios.

The piece is a mix of different achievements obtained from the program mentioned in the title: Unicum I. It acts in sound fields whose limits and characteristics are placed by the user, the development of the resulting materials are governed by random procedures of a virtually unlimited duration. The piece is therefore only an extract of prolonged achievements.

knots represents and attempt to create a ‘meta-instrument’ percussive in nature, within certain behavioural contraints. It uses both recorded and synthesized percussive materials generated using a variety of means including Music-11, an old fairlight CMI and a DX-7. The title refers to the way in which materials with wooden, skin and metal origins are continually intertwined and reconfigured in layers and periodically ‘untangled’. Structurally the piece imitates (in a fairly loose way) the overall shape of the envelope of a (metal) percussion instrument - a sharp attack with complex transients, followed by a long decay where the rate of spectral change becomes progressively slower. knots was re-mixed in 1995.

From the Other Side of the Glass is an electro-acoustic composition for many speakers in three movements, played without interval. The sonorities consists of and has emanated from human work, fragments of instrument sounds and cuts from nature. Bilad Human work and activity are form and sound catalyst in the first part. Short fractions from one as well as many lifes. Pålad Here it is human acts in form of improvising musicians that is most important for material and development. Many thanks to Paul Pignon, saxophone, and Raymond Stridh, percussion, for their participation. Enad The nature and incidents from it is the formal and sonorous starting point for the last movement. The sort of predictable impredictability that we call natural is of high importance in this part.

In four movements ... Aurora Borealis Full Moon Shooting Star Milky Way Nuits sans Paroles is a series of small paintings painted with an economy of means and a speech purified of any useless element. Ethereal memories, impressionistic visions, so are our Nuits sans Paroles...