127 (2018)
for voice and guitar
Premiere: Hasco Duo, New Music DePaul, February 2018
One approach that I have taken in recent years is writing new works that can incorporate existing pieces and explore new sonic and semantic relationships to “found” materials (e.g., Broadcast, 2013; Crack the Shell, 2014). 127 deals with the combination of two works, this time both composed by me. Here the “found objects” are items from 100 Not-Songs for John Cage (2012), for soprano, and the new work is a graphic and text score called 27 States (2017). In the vocal piece, the soprano chooses several of the 100 short items associated with the eight letters in John Cage’s name and uses the name to build an order. In 27 States, the guitarist chooses a musical source and assembles a version of the score to create the pattern of sonic “states” the sound source will move through during the performance. For this version, aspects of some of the Not-songs are the source of the guitar’s changing states.