Charlotte Mundy: Soprano, Erika Raum : Violin, Adam Scime: Electronics

Recorded at Harbourfront Centre, Toronto

New Music Concerts Toronto

February, 2020

Combining acoustic sounds with live electronic sounds, this piece examines the systematized distortions of recurring musical fragments, as if looking out into the world though a rain-soaked window. Simultaneously, the work examines not only the permeability of images but also the permeability of memory. How do we interpret the events which shape our current identities and circumstances?

Drawing from the poetry of Jens Peter Jacobsen, Regnvejr I Skoven is inspired by the naturalist perspective of art and its usage of observation and the scientific method to enrich artistic expression. About 150 years after Jacobsen’s poem, I marvel at the oasis of sonic possibilities which can now be realized through computer music technology and signal processing. In this piece, I experiment with the sudden changes of acoustic space, the vocal properties given to the instruments through convolution, and the systematic granulation of acoustic sounds to produce effects which are on one hand artificial but on the other, mysteriously natural, almost like rain…

I am very grateful to Robert Pond for his invaluable expertise in realizing the electronics, and to the performers Jessica Wagner and Natalie Dzbik whose virtuosity and enthusiasm for new music played a critical role in the genesis of this work.