New Prospect

Fixed media piece for Loudspeaker Orchestra (2015)

4′ 50”

December 6, 2015, Studiosaal, Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik, Berlin, Germany – performed on the Berliner Lautsprecherorchester

New Prospect is the name of this song from The Sacred Harp, a songbook in the American shape note tradition. I have become deeply involved with this traditional music through singing with Sacred Harp singers in Berlin, whose voices (including mine) are heard here. I have created a two-part canon out of the song and have not manipulated my recording otherwise. The changes and coloration of the sound are due solely to the sonic characters of the various elements of the loudspeaker orchestra. The steady, repetitive, and cyclical nature of the song (especially in its canon form) seemed to call for the slow and gradual arc of its “orchestration” on the Berliner Lautsprecherorchester.