ALONE
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the GAP (2023) is an improvisation/composition that explores the closed piccolo. The title refers to the gap in time between the past and future as referenced in Jenny Odell’s Saving Time.
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Stillness is the Move (2022) sonifies the movement of the flutist’s body. She begins by tuning an octave and fifth with her electronically delayed echo, then performs a melody in complete stillness. Stillness is a value she embodies in order to find change. Each performance is slightly different depending on our physical being at the exact moment.
First performance by Rachel Beetz on November 21, 2022 at Tuesdays at Monkspace in Los Angeles, CA
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Viskuvinátta (2023) is an imaginary folk song about the connection between two friends. Throughout the song, the flutist plays while singing simultaneously. The two sounds intertwine to create a third, collective timbre. These two voices represent the connection of friendship and the ultimate result of this kind of relationship: shared wisdom. It is written for Berglind, who requested a solo piece after hearing one of my short voice and flute improvisations. The song is dedicated to her and the wisdom of our friendship.
First performance by Berglind María Tómasdóttir, April 2023 at Salurinn in Kopavogur, Iceland
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Unofficial Dreams (2022) is for a custom-built synthesizer created with flute multiphonics. The composition is the result of a daily improvisation practice performed in December of 2020 and my album project Unofficial. Like many other songs on this album, this piece explores different cycles of listening time. The playback audio is the pulse of breathing through the flute. The pianist’s left hand pulses two chords according to how their ear responds to the growing synthesizer, while the right hand explores a rising melody. We hear the warped time of my flute multiphonic within the sound of the synth. Then there is the listening time of the performer as she responds in real-time to the density of sound. The confluence of these timelines creates an ever-changing landscape of sound; at once this piece is known to me physically, but unknowable in present time, just like a dream. The only way to experience it is to listen.
Performance by Todd Moellenberg
TOGETHER
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Movement in Stillness (2023) is a complement to the solo Stillness is the Move. The two flutists play a single note while the electronics delay and transpose their sound according to the position of their bodies. The flutists move physically around the performance space, exploring complementary shapes, pausing when they find a particularly enjoyable chord.
First performance by Rachel Beetz and Berglind María Tómasdóttir on January 19, 2023 at Mengi in Reykjavik, Iceland.
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A graphic score for any number of instruments with playback. This work is a sonification of a star trail photo taken on January 9, 2016 in Olafsfjordur, Iceland as a part of The Winter Stars project.
First performance by Wasteland on the The Winter Wasteland Festival in December 2019.
ACOUSMATIC
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Pareidolia explores the phenomenon where our brains attempt to make patterns out of random information. In this forty minute improvisation, I explore a kind of auditory pareidolia by slowly transforming a drone revealing melodies both real and imagined.
Each body’s experience connects to their own perceptions and cultural histories of listening; no two will hear the same music. A slight physical change in your listening position will drastically change what you hear. This is the music of your attention.
I invite you to play this music loudly and to hum long tones and/or the slow melodies they hear, exploring how this changes the body’s resonance and perception of the sound. You may also find it interesting to accompany you on long walks or drives. I dedicate Pareidolia to anyone whose experience was ever discounted or not believed.
Performed live on June 26, 2024 on an ARP 2600 M
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Pause Music (2021) was an experimental meditation podcast based on recorded sounds of Southern California.
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The Winter Stars II (2017) is an animation of photographs from The Winter Stars project where each hour was created by realizing stacked photographs of the night sky taken during the darkest moon cycle from 11 December 2015 to 9 January 2016 at the same location in Ólafsfjörður, Iceland. These photographs are presented in motion in The Winter Stars II, along with the audio realizations from the larger sound installation. In this video, each day is represented by two minutes.
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The Winter Stars (2016) is a soundscape composition that recreates the landscape of the darkest moon cycle of winter 2015-2016 in Ólafsfjörður, Iceland. From December 11, 2015 to January 9, 2016, photographs were taken of the night sky revealing cosmic gestures invisible to the naked eye: star trails, clouds, snow trails, the aurora, all in different combinations.
These photographs were precisely translated into sound using flutes, field recordings, and electronic processing. Each image became a one-hour composition; a sonic transformation of the time needed to create a star trail photograph. The complete soundscape lasts 30 hours.
Available for purchase as a crystal usb flash drive, booklet, or digital download.
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Script – Rescript is a sonic translation of drawings by Nichole Speciale that were created while listening to recordings of my playing. In this project, we drawing and sound are translated back and forth, like in a game of telephone. In the drawings, Speciale performs gestures of iteration: one mark traces a musical line in each of the pieces, following marks try to repeat the first, but ultimately get translated into a new form that echo the preceding. In the sound, Beetz measures each image, exactly translating every drawn gesture into a specific sound in time.
released on populist records April 10, 2020 PR016
Available for purchase in a limited edition of hand-sewn eco jackets.