Output details

Exposure 4.

Exposure 4.

This is a composition for saxophone quartet and electronics commissioned by the Quasar Saxophone Quartet, Montreal in 2009. The piece explores the space between determinacy and indeterminacy in regards to the use of musical materials between the four instruments. This results in an ambiguous musical environment in which precision in the articulation of pitch and timbre is conflated with derivative events arising from a disjunction in playing techniques.

The quartet is treated both as a whole and as a discontinuous aggregate of four instruments which themselves become dissected by playing techniques which require the performer to revisit the habitual body-instrument relationship.

The piece makes use of hybrid notation, including graphic, mobile and conventional. Some elements of the notation (e.g. section 1) are intended to address the physical relationship between performer and instrument by specifying fingering patterns and breathing as independent gestures. This technique enables a sound world in which there is a limited range of timbal and harmonic possibilities within a high degree of indeterminacy in regards to individual gesture.