PYLON
For Percussion Quartet.
PYLON for Percussion Quartet by Edgar Barroso / Performed by TALUJON Percussion Quartet / April 24, 2010 – Harvard University from Edgar Barroso on Vimeo.
Pylon For Percussion Quartet by edgarbarroso
(Better if listen with headphones).
A pylon is a new typographic term introduced to define the missing areas of a stencil typeface. Ascenders, arms, crossbars, counters, spines, shoulders, tails, stems and spurs: altogether there are over 20 components in the anatomy of type. There remains a gap in the vocabulary of this most respected of crafts, however. In the designing or cutting of stencil letterforms, one is invariably brought to a point wherein the supporting canvas is joined to counter of the letter. Up until now, these supporting areas have gone without definition or label. A gross oversight by the standards of any industry, let alone one with as rich and respected a history as typography.
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METAMORPHOSEON
For Six Singers
Metamorphoseon Edgar Barroso by edgarbarroso_2
(Better if listen with headphones)
Written for the Neue Vocalisten Stuttgart this piece is a tribute to the old, to tragedy, to the slow movement of time when looked from a distance. The text is taken from the narrative poem Metamorphoseon (book 7) by Ovid. In this fragment, the narrator is describing the tragedy in which Cadmus is being transformed into a snake. While Cadmus was saying farewell to Harmonia, the metamorphoses into a snake is taking place. When he is completely transformed and therefore unable to say a word, Harmonia curses against the Gods, and ask them to transformed her also into a snake. The Gods were not pleased with Harmonia’s attitude, and decided to fulfill her wish and transformed her into a snake. The piece ends with the narrator describing how the two lovers are crawling into the jungle as snakes. This piece has three characters. A narrator, represented by the 6 voices, Cadmus, represented by the three male voices and Harmonia, represented by the three female voices. Ovid reminds us the acceptance of destiny, elegiac couplets, and the fusion of erotic and psychological traditional forms of epic.
Sarah Sun, high soprano
Susanne Leitz-Lorey, lyric soprano
Truike van der Poel, mezzo soprano
Martin Nagy, tenor
Guillermo Anzorena, baritone
Andreas Fischer, bass
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LUNFARDA
For Cello, Piano and 4 Percussions.
LUNFARDA for cello, piano and four percussions from Edgar Barroso on Vimeo.
Listen to the recording of the concert at Harvard (Better if listen with headphones).
This piece is a labyrinth. First inspired by the painting “Dancers II” by Joan Miró, which took the piece into the categorization of a group of limited musical elements connecting and interacting by subtle lines and/or colors in the space (the same way as in the painting). And secondly the painting took Lunfarda to look for metaphors of movement between two persons. In other words the composer turned his attention into dancing. The piece was named Lunfarda because of the relationship with tango. Lunfardo is an argot of the Spanish language which developed at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century in the lower classes in and around Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Some Tango lyrics use it very heavily. The piece mapped some of the “accents” of the movement of two tango dancers. Surprisingly enough, the movements were always different regardless of the music, they are independent, unstable and some of them improvised. This piece tries to recreate a dance (a piece) that posses the freedom of these Tango dancers seeking for a conversation by hearing the “body of the other”. The percussion elements function, is to expand these relations between the two elements and also to provide a disintegration process of the traditional characteristics of the cello and piano, and confuse them into percussion noise production devices. The percussion instruments are integrated in the musical phrases and are a vital part of the piece color. After all, Tango is a hybrid, the same way Lunfarda is.
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ECHOIC
For Violin, Gamelan and Live Electronics
ECHOIC – For Violin, Gamelan and Live Electronics (Max/MSP) by Edgar Barroso from Edgar Barroso on Vimeo.
Listen to the recording of the concert!!! (Better if Listen with Headphones)
Echoic is a piece motivated by two concerns. The first one being the generation of gestures that are a result of resonance (and vice versa) and the second one is the challenge of using the Gamelan as a different instrument, and try to take a distant from the historic “weight” of such a beautiful instrument. The structure was developed using simple sounds that evolved into more complex ones, and that is precisely the driving building force; evolution. In addition, the piece tries to integrate the Gamelan as an extension of the electronics which is in constant dialogue-processing with the violin. The violin plays a soloist role in this piece but both instruments are to be processed independently in real time. The piece features several aspects that convey velocity and the idea of injection of energy to specific material that will eventually spread to the rest of the musical elements. The Gamelan also is treated as an “amplifier” of the violin ideas. The violinist (Gabriela Diaz) will control the cues for the computer and the Gamelan performers, playing a crucial role not only as a violinist, but also as a sort of conductor in the piece.
John Knowles Paine Concert Hall
December 10-11 2009
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Kapsis Video Collaboration with Yen-Ting Cho
Animation: Yen-Ting Cho
Music: Edgar Barroso
(Better if listen with headphones)
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SPECIATIONS
Miniatures for Orchestra.
ALLOPATRIC
SYMPATRIC
Alternative geographic models of speciation (Futuyma 1997)
Speciations are 2 miniature orchestral pieces based on the idea of the concept of Speciation. Speciation is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise. The biologist Orator F. Cook seems to have been the first to coin the term ’speciation’ for the splitting of lineages or ‘cladogenesis,’ as opposed to ‘anagenesis’ or ‘phyletic evolution’ occurring within lineages. There are four geographic modes of speciation in nature, based on the extent to which speciating populations are geographically isolated from one another: allopatric, peripatric, parapatric, and sympatric.
Geographic models of speciation emphasize the development of reproductive isolation between geographic population components of a species. (A) Allopatric: reproductive isolation develops between populations in physical isolation. (B) Founder Effect: reproductive isolation develops in a small population separated from the main body of the species, in consequence of the biology of small populations. (C) Parapatric: reproductive isolation develops among contiguous components of a population, in consequence of their limited vagility. (D) Sympatric: reproductive isolation develops within the “cruising range” of an existing species, in consequence of special biological properties (e.g., host-parasite specificity).
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ATARAXIA
For One Percussionist
Ataraxia (Ἀταραξία) is a Greek term used by Pyrrho and Epicurus for a limpid state, characterized by freedom from worry or any other preoccupation. The piece is about touching and permanent soft movement. Eventhough the instrumentation is full with percussion instruments, the piece is mora a meditative one. For the Pyrrhonians, owing to one’s inability to say which sense impressions are true and which ones are false, it is quietude that arises from suspending judgment on dogmatic beliefs or anything non-evident and continuing to inquire. The experience was said to have fallen on the painter Apelles who was trying to paint the foam of a horse (likely a bit of frothy saliva near its mouth). He was so unsuccessful that in a rage he gave up and threw the sponge he was cleaning his brushes with at the medium, thus producing the effect of the horse’s foam.
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CATALYST
For Viola Solo
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The piece is about accelerating. A Catalyst is something that causes an event to happen. It can accelerate the interaction between two objects or simply affect the way they interact in endless forms. Unlike other reagents that participate in the reaction, a catalyst is not consumed. Thus, the catalyst may participate in multiple transformations, although in practice catalysts are secondary processes. The piece takes two musical materials to interact, and then use energy as a “catalyst”. If this catalyst does change the equilibrium, then it must be consumed as the “reaction” proceeds, and thus it is also a reactant.
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Acoustic Version of LOGOS.
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This time the musicians from the White Rabbit Ensemble will present the acoustic version of LOGOS, commissioned by Visiones Sonoras Festival. This acoustic version is for violin, cello and piano.
Eric Hewitt – Conductor
Gabriela Diaz – Violin
Ben Schwartz – Cello
Yoko Hagino – Piano
December.6.2008
Harvard University / December.06.2008
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LOGOS
For Clarinet, Bassoon, Piano and Live Electronics
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A comission from the “INTERNATIONAL VISIONES SONORAS FESTIVAL 2008″ for the TRIO NEOS premiered in November at Morelia, Mexico. This piece is based on the text “Against image. About Poetry and Philosophy” by the Mexican Philosopher Santiago Espinosa, currently a PhD candidate at the University of Paris-Sorbonne Paris IV, and the Aristotle definition of LOGOS as argument from reason, one of the three modes of persuasión.
TRIO NEOS
www.trioneos.com
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Animation Video
Edgar Barroso – Sound Design and Music
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Edgar Barroso Conducting
First rehearsal with the Radcliffe Orchestra at John Knwoles Paine Concert Hall – Harvard University Department of Music
12.12.2009
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ACU – 8.0 Electroacoustic Multichannel Piece
Particularly important in acupuncture is the free flow of Qi, it is commonly translated as “vital energy”. Acupuncture treatment regulates the flow of Qi, tonifying where there is deficiency, draining where there is excess, and promoting free flow where there is stagnation. An axiom of the medical literature of acupuncture is “no pain, no blockage; no blockage, no pain.” Acu is based on the idea of representing an ill sound organism full with blockages that eventually will heal by “pressing” specific points (speakers).
Listen to the stereo version of ACU:
ACU by edgarbarroso
I would like to thank the Open Source Creation Group at Harvard, my collegues in course 264 and Hans Tutschku for their thoughtful feedback in the composition process of this piece.
December.13.2008
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MORPHOMETRICS – Removing Translation
Electroacoustic Miniature
Morphometrics is a field concerned with studying variation and change in the form (size and shape) of organisms. This piece is about using some of the methods of morphometrics and applying them to sound structures. These include measurement of lengths and angles, (pitch and gesture), landmark analysis (spacialization) and outline analysis (dynamics and timbre). The first method is removing translations. These are needed in order to compare shapes (sounds), the sounds need to be fitted into a frame of reference that places them in the same virtual space. The second method is to use the “centroid” – that is, the “centre of mass” of the sounds, this centroid is calculated for each new sound and translated to the original sound. The result of these comparisons and translations is the core of the structure and music ideas for this piece, this analysis will generate a graphical score and will serve as a guide for the structure of the piece.
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MORPHOMETRICS meets Biobinaria
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Improvisation Performance for hands, cello, video, electroacoustics and live electronics
Performer: Edgar Barroso
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Watch the concert in Google Video
This piece was created and produced thanks to the support of the Mexican Centre for Music and Sonic Arts (CMMAS).
Live at the International Contemporary Art Festival – León, Gto – Mexico – 14.08.2008
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“K A P S I S”
For Flute Solo
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“Kapsis” (Sea Star)
The piece is based in the Prehispanic Mexican Legend “Kapsis” from an unknown author. Kapsis daughter of the Haas chief was surprised immobile and silently watching the sky each night on the beach to contemplate the sky. Kapsis was in love with one particular vastlk (star). One night she returned to the sea, and anxiously looked at the sky in search of the beautiful vastlk. Suddenly, she envisioned how her favourite star was falling from the sky into the sea. Frightened, she ran to the nearest canoe; paddling, she came to the place where he had seen the falling star, and was thrown into the water to rescue her, but in its rapid decline, she fell on a rock and died. Xtamosbin, god of the Oceans, saw the tragedy, and had their hands on the lifeless body of the young Kapsis turning her instantly into a beautiful star sea.
Harvard University 24.05.2008
USA
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“AION” (2006) 14:40
For Flute , Clarinet, Oboe, Basoon, Percussion, Piano, violin, viola, cello, double-bass
The word AION is derived from the koine Greek word ( αίών ) which at one point meant “a period of time”, in Greek myth AION was the god of the ages (time) also known as Chronos. The subjective perception of time is one of the main elements of which are alluded to in this work. The piece deals with three time aspects: continuity, interruption and suspension. Aion constantly explores the sensation of vacuum that arises when the music “freezes” and “thaws” as an excuse to continue to the next musical idea. The core of the piece (the opening) consists in a dense mass with similar rhythm patterns for all the instruments which are “captive” in a rather active internal structure within short periods of time. The constitution of the piece is formed by the used of restricted range of materials, phrasing and proportions. These elements are derived from speech analysis in different native languages from the south of Mexico. The objective of the instrumentation is the prolongation of these gestures through the transposition of complex counterpoints and the richness of the ensemble timbre and energy. It’s a piece over the frailty of one instant, one moment, one musical AION.
1rst Prize at the International Jurgenson Composition Competition (Moscow)
Premiered on june the 3rd of 2007 by the Cantus Ensemble Zagreb at Ensemblia 2007
AION by edgarbarroso
03.06.2007 Mönchengladbach, Germany
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“The Life of a Fly”
Short Animation Film by Yen Ting Cho – Visuals / Edgar Barroso – Music
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Harvard University 10.15.2008
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Searching your Synesthesia (2005) 14:35″
For Flute, Clarinte, Cello, Piano and Live Elecetronics
1rst Prize at the International
LIVE ELECTRONIC MUSIC COMPETITION 2006 – Harvard
SEARCHING YOUR SYNESTHESIA – for flute, cello, piano and live electronics by edgarbarroso
Synesthesia: faculty to experience sensations of a particular sense modality, provoked by a different one. The piece tries to literally “search” the sound Synesthesia of the audience and the performers. The PD live electronics is used as a tool to “expand” the instruments capabilities, and generate sounds and sensation of space provoked by a different source and location. The score is written in a progressive structure that is constantly using or recycling the acoustic and electronic material that it is transformed in several ways during time. The search for a very clear and programmed interaction between the acoustic players and the computer player is crucial, although there are moments of controlled indeterminacy.
Harvard University
Stephen Drury, conductor
Patti Monson, flute
Gary Gorczyca, Clarinet
David Russell, cello
Edgar Barroso, Live Electronics
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“M I S E R E R E”
For 12 Mix voices a capella
Painting: The vision of Daniel by Willem Drost
Choral Works (fragments) Náhuatl texts.
“Tenamiquiliztli” for six voices capella chorus
“Cauhucuicatl” for six voices capella chorus
“Ma ye ya nican” for six voices capella chorus
January 12, 2008 Cambridge. (USA)
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La Percusión de tu Frecuencia (2007) 12:10″
For Flute and Live Electronics
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This piece is about breathing. The idea is to represent a biological process in which all listeners could be familiar or identified with, and use this element to communicate a musical idea was one of the main creative challenges during the composition of the piece. A relation between the frequency and the rhythmical patterns (represented as percussion patterns) was established by considering that the higher the frequency, the higher the tension in the rhythmical structure and vice versa. In this way the piece starts constructing a sonorous weave that responded to the necessities of the breathing of the performer, and at the same time affects the formal structural parameters of the piece. This piece works a lot with perception and memory of the listener, by using some events that are always repeated throughout the piece with constant intervallic and gesture permutations. This work is technically and musically very demanding for the performer, whom has to deal with a score of great complexity and in addition to that, be in charge of the synchronization of the electro acoustic part that he controls with a MIDI pedal that is triggering the electro acoustic sounds. The electronics are based on the idea of gesture integration of sonorous objects to the flute material. This piece is then, a desire to establish a direct interaction between: breathing, frequency (intervals), rhythm (percussion) and technologyin a same unified music environment.
La Percusión de tu Frecuencia – AUDIO
La Percusión de tu Frecuencia – PDF
FLute: Jessi Rosinski
Concert at Harvard University
14.12.2007
Cambridge, MA
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OME – IC – AINI
Three pieces for improvisation
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“OME”
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Edgar Barroso & Bert Van Herck improvising with Live Electronics Max/MSP and PD (Pure Data) at the Harvard University College Theater. May 2008.
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“IC”
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Edgar Barroso & Michael Heller improvising with Live Electronics Max/MSP and PD (Pure Data) at the Harvard University College Theater. May 2008.
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“AINI”
For Ensemble
Piano: Ulrich Kreppein & Bert Van Herck
Violin: Hillary Zipper
Trumpet: Peter Gilbert
Saxophones: Michael Heller / Danny Mekonnen
Percussion: Gabriele Vanoni, Steven Li and Keith Fernandez
Space: Hans Tutschku
Cello and Tape: Edgar Barroso
Live at the Harvard College Theater – 23.05.2008
Cambridge, MA
Live at the Harvard College Theater – 23.05.2008
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“Pieza para Tiza” (Short Film animation)
This short film was made by Karina Letelier, Marina Lobo, Rocío Naranjo, Triana Raya.
Music and sound design:Edgar Barroso
Barcelona, 2006
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IOD (2007) 14:40″
For Saxophone tenor and Live Electronics
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Iod is the Greek root for violet. Dedicated to the saxophonist Xelo Giner, Iod searches the relationship between the electronics and the saxophone that is focused on highlighting sounds from the instrument, and extend them as fas as timbre and dynamics is concerned. The outline of the piece is planned so that the temporal distance between the interactions between the saxophone and electronics are actually quite short. The strategy to achieve this relationship in the piece to compose it as a piece of piano, saxophone which the right hand and the electronics that represent the left hand. In this way the different interactions between the saxophone and electronics create lines and counterpoint relations that are constantly talking to each other.
This patch was done in collaboration with programmer Matteo Sistisette (Italy). The piece is dedicated to Xelo Giner
Hydra Concert – Philip Stäudlin/Sax – Edgar Barroso / Electronics
14.12.2007
Cambridge, MA
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CYT (2007) 09:00″
Acousmatic 5.1 Multichannel Piece
Cyt is the greek root for cell, the human body is a system made up of discrete organs and tissues, however, individual cells that compose these essential tissues are often short-lived. The skin covering our body today is not really the same skin we had a month ago. The piece follows this principle in the sense that it is constructed with “sound cells” that have specific functions and are constantly regenerating to sustain “life”. The sounds are classified depending on the potential of self-renewal, proliferation potential and the degree of differentiation. In addition, the numerical balance of this sounds, will determine the way in which musical ideas interact, and the variations that could emerge if that fragile balanced is changed.
Cervantes Institute of Berlin
23.03.06 Berlin, Germany
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El Sigilo de tu Elipsis
For Cello and Live Electronics
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Watch the concert in Google Video
Pantin Conservatory.
Hughe Vincent – Cello
Edgar Barroso – Live Electronics
22.05.2007 Pantin, France
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TAU (2005) 05:30″
Acousmatic 5.1 Multichannel Piece
Pubished by Lanus University – Argentina
The piece is based on the metaphoric idea of one of the six components that form leptons, called Tau. This particle, in spite of being considered as a lepton, that literately means “slight mass” has more than three thousands times more mass than an electron. From that idea I wanted it to make an analogy with the sounds, to represent isolated elements that can exist with no need of company of other particles, but that will possibly have much more weight than another phenomena, which at first, would seem dominant, and perhaps represent sound particles that give sensation of fighting for its own sonorous space is a metaphor to demonstrate that a particle can be heavier, than complex figures (Not every thing is the way it “sounds”). But eventually they have to figure out a way of sharing the surround field. The piece was made in the Laboratory of Audio of the University Institute of the Audio-visual at the Pompeu Fabra University between january an march of 2005. Barcelona. Spain. Small Fragment Audiovisual:
Yen-Ting Cho Visuals / Edgar Barroso Music – Harvard University (2007)
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ODD (2006) 10:35″
Acousmatic 5.1 Multichannel Piece
Commissioned by the DAAD for the Inventionen 2006 Festival, ODD was conceived based on the SMS tools, which are a set of techniques and software implementations for the analysis, transformation and synthesis of musical sounds, developed by Xavier Serra an his team at MTG (Music Technology Group). The textures of the piece are built from “residual” components which after a process of constant transpositions create very dense no-pitch sound masses. In a sense, ODD is a trio, having three recognizable sound sources, a violin, a set of percussions and a female voice, which are surrounded and interrupted by this residual, permanently moving textures. The spacialization of sound was founded on the geometrical concept of odd functions that are symmetric with respect to the origin, meaning that its graph remains unchanged after rotation of 180 degrees about the origin. The work´s structure is based on four clear moments defined mainly by its background sonic textures, in its internal construction it is also the result of selecting graphic information given by the SMS analysis and subjectively interpret it as a “score” of the incoming musical events. ODD used the SMS tools as a “prism” that can disperse a “light” (sound) wave.
28.05.2006 Berlin, Germany
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ES TU DANZA (2004) 10:12″
For Symphonic Orchestra
Orchestral work composed in 2004. The work was inspired by the thought of Erich Fromm (1900-1980), psychologist and social philosopher of German origin that mainly explores the interaction between psychology and society, and dedicated a good part of his work to deal with the phenomenon of the alienation of the modern man in the context of the world that surrounds it. The title Is your dance is related to the well-known phrase of Erich Fromm: I am you, looking for to create, by means of the use of some psychological and somatic references like the breathing and the heart rate. This was the first parameter search to the writing of the work. This piece, tries to obtain this connection by means of a orchestration of resistances, of sonorous weave masses or sonorous blocks to the solitary intervention of extreme pitch ranges. As far as the harmonic system, it is a work in which a series of matrix of 5 notes were used to multiplied and basically some resonances were delimited.
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DUX (2006) 7:45″
From Latin “leader”, four sounds conforms the leaders of their legions of sub-sounds. The piece begins with a single sound, that “hauls” to a series of others that are forming and connecting the music ideas throughout the piece. The form is determined by this same criteria, is a piece divided in four clear sections, in which each dux sound has a protagonist role, these sounds are formed by two recordings, cello and contact microphone and the other two are generated by synthesis. The creation of sub-sounds are mainly done by re-synthesis and audio processing changing their location within the space.
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“Ensueños¨ Video Art short film made by Edgar Barroso,
Ricard Marxer, Rebecka Viró and Erick Arreola. Actríz: Matxalen de Pedro
Muestra de Arte Digital MAD04, CaixaForum Barcelona, 2006
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Tu Soplo que transporta (2005) 12:48″
For Clarinet and Live Electronics
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The piece is based on the metaphor of approximation-silence and the process of breathing. We only hear us breathing when we are quiet; and certainly we can only listen to somebody else breath when we are very close, perhaps in intimacy. With the used of live electronics and a wind instrument the material is transformed in different degrees, led away by the used of sound spectrum of the clarinet and a second element that will interact in real time with the performer generating a strong relation between an amplitude threshold that will settle on the amount of electronic material that is getting out from the computer and music score. The complete interactive part is programmed in PD (Pure Data). In this piece the performer triggers sound samples and real time procedures with the used of a switch and volume MIDI foot pedal. The piece requires a second performer dedicated to the electronic part to control the subjective parameters and incorporate some brief moments of improvisation. The piece was produced in November 2005 at the Audio Laboratory of the University Institute for Audiovisuals from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.
Clarinet: Naum Monteverde
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